sundays finds, not sure if either are arifacts

[berti]

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade - Grab it through Amazon!

[berti]

Found these in a new house subdivision being built.

 

[rockheadhunter421]

I'm not sure about that first one but that other one looks like a scraper to me.

 

[GatorBoy]

Looks like you found a natural point shaped stone and a cast of the interior of a fossil shell ..oyster maybe.

 

[berti]

Cool. The bigger one is so sharp feels like it could be used for a scraper

 

[rockheadhunter421]

A scraper doesn't really have to have a lot of secondary edgework or micro-flaking. It still could have been used as a scraper for a quick, survival situation. It doesn't have to look perfect. I've been cut before numerous times, in the field, by jasper, rhyolite and quartz. Them rocks can be sharp enough to be used as a tool, even when they don't even look like an artifact. If it ever happens to you sometime, you will see that it can slice you faster than a paper cut.

 

[GatorBoy]

There is no evidence that was ever handled or altered by a human. Its sharp naturally by it's shape and high silica content.
Anything else is just imagination.

 

[rockheadhunter421]

You're right about high silica content. You been in any survival situations before or read about primitive skills? If you've ever been in that situation, then you'd know that a scraper doesn't have to be perfect. The more you've encountered it the better you get and you can make it very simple. Time was precious to them ancient Natives. I have some very poor quality scrapers in my collection and some nice ones. Overall it's what the collector imagines. Collecting rocks is fun huh?

 

[berti]

Sometimes the eyes see what the mind wants lol.

 

[wetfly]

I try to limit my collection to artifacts, and leave the rocks where they were.

 

[deadeye 22250]

To me they look natural.

 

[GroundS.KeepeR]

Most often if that was a scraper,you would find more flakes or tools in same area .

 

[Charl]

A scraper doesn't really have to have a lot of secondary edgework or micro-flaking. It still could have been used as a scraper for a quick, survival situation. It doesn't have to look perfect. I've been cut before numerous times, in the field, by jasper, rhyolite and quartz. Them rocks can be sharp enough to be used as a tool, even when they don't even look like an artifact. If it ever happens to you sometime, you will see that it can slice you faster than a paper cut.

But, as GatorBoy observed, if it shows no evidence of manufacturing, and if the wear is not consistent with or clearly demonstrates usage, then there is no way of knowing if such a stone was ever used. And when that's the case, it can't definitively be called a scraper or an artifact at all. There is no getting around that fact. Imagination is not evidence; imagination is not proof.

 

[rockheadhunter421]

I put up a good thread here, trying to get an opinion from some "experts" and I get not a single reply. You guys jump all over these type of threads though. I have a perfect example to show y'all from my collection. It is a rhyolite blade found 80 some miles from a quarry source. It has no secondary or micro flaking. Since I found that type of rhyolite that far away from its source it's without a doubt a tool and not imagination. I will provide pictures later.

 

[GatorBoy]

With replies like that I wouldn't be surprised if you do not get any more responses.. Just because you found a piece of material that source may have been or may not have been far away does not make it a tool.
I will provide no pictures later.
I don't know why you come off like you have a chip on your shoulder or your trying to argue after asking for opinions if you don't want an opinion then don't ask for one.. Or if you only want opinions that agree with yours don't ask other people.. That's why your not getting replies people tend not to like speaking to a brick wall

 

[GatorBoy]

I put up a good thread here, trying to get an opinion from some "experts" and I get not a single reply. You guys jump all over these type of threads though. I have a perfect example to show y'all from my collection. It is a rhyolite blade found 80 some miles from a quarry source. It has no secondary or micro flaking. Since I found that type of rhyolite that far away from its source it's without a doubt a tool and not imagination. I will provide pictures later.

I think I found the problem read that first sentence I would like to take a moment to remind you this was not your thread.
You strike me as someone who has been doing this for only a few years that still has an overzealous imagination and a head full of information that has yet to be sorted out and completely understood... People are staying away from your thread because you are chasing them away I believe.
If your piece has no evidence of any flaking or other alteration caused by a human hand its nothing more than a piece of rayholite.. Anything more is just your imagination

 

[yakker]

I have often said that a piece might be a 'tool of convenience'. But a 'tool of convenience' is not an artifact for the simple reason that it cannot be proved to have been used at all- unless, UNLESS there's absolutely obvious wear (not really 'wear' per se, but a shine- a patina- that shows up when the tool was used to cut meat) on the blade edge- as in TRULY old artifacts, such as have been found in Africa, as well as other VERY old locations of earliest man-made tools. And even then, it's always controversial.

A survival situation has absolutely nothing to do w/ archaeology, per se. Archaeology is not the study of desperate moments in history, but rather a scientific analysis of the remains of a bygone era. Science. Not 'Survivor Man'. A broken, sharp-edged rock may in fact be evidence of something, it is not an artifact. You might, however, call it a 'clue' that leads to the discovery of artifacts. Yakker