Upper PA site gives up contact American Indian and unknown item

[smokeythecat]

It was a long drive. At least no bears crossed the road in front of me this time. This was in far northern PA, as far as you get without getting into NY. 300 acres + and all mine!

Stuff is hard to get here. I found a big handful of flakes of the Onondaga Chert. These two have finely worked edges so were used as tools.

I did find a tip off of a very large point.

Now this next item is a puzzler. It was glaciated in from either northern NY or Vermont, and is granite, the local stone is Devonian shale. It's about 3" long and has been finely worked on most sides, the end is snapped off, not sure if that's how it was or if it broke. If it broke, it broke a very, very long time ago.

That edge is very fine! Most of the other edges are also highly smoothed. Ideas?

I also found a contact period fired small caliber musket ball and a piece of perhaps ornamental lead. Plus a couple modern coins. Ugh.

 

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[Westfront]

Great finds, i love stone artifacts. Your puzzler looks like an adze to me. We have similar shaped ones here, often made from granite and with the same flat underside and frustum shaped profile.

 

[smokeythecat]

A very small adze?

 

[Westfront]

A very small adze?

I got smaller ones here. Basically two types here, called Flat/Wide or Long/High. Yours look like our long high with the tail end broken off. Most common are about 4" long ones. Biggers are not for use more for showing off or grave goods. The 4" size is usable for working without a high risk for breaking.

 

[smokeythecat]

Well, it's not a celt, so maybe adze it is. It took a long time to get it to that shape. There is very little quartz in the area, so another piece of granite probably made it into a usable shape. What would they use it for again? This is apparently my first one.

 

[Westfront]

Well, it's not a celt, so maybe adze it is. It took a long time to get it to that shape. There is very little quartz in the area, so another piece of granite probably made it into a usable shape. What would they use it for again? This is apparently my first one.

Woodworking like cutting trees and construction wood for wells is confirmed.
Here's a quick pic from two small ones with the upper granite flat wide just over 2" long (not broken).

 

[Truth]

Man y’all speak in a whole Nother language but it’s cool

 

[pepperj]

Man y’all speak in a whole Nother language but it’s cool

Ever venture on the North American Indian Artifacts site?
It's taking that Nother language to whole new level.

Good eye smokey, congrats!
I was out looking at a cleared parcel of land by the local waterway-nothing to be found.
We've had a real wet spell so it was pretty wet lands, so I followed a set of bear prints out of the cleared area.
It seemed to know what dirt would support its size.
The prints wider than my 13 Bloodstones, so it was nice to following it instead of the other way around.

 

[Digger RJ]

Nice!!! Congrats!!!!

 

[CRUSADER]

https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/1026116
I agree with Westfront, the first thing that jumped to my mine was a polished stone axe. Lots of different stone types & sizes, I just chose one at random above.
Not sure how that translates to your area of history.

 

[ToddsPoint]

Maybe it was a wedge for splitting wood. It might have broken when someone beat on the back of it too hard. Just a guess. Gary

 

[smokeythecat]

The one side my hand is on is "rind" from the original granite. Never worked. My mom got me started looking for this stuff when I was probably 8 or 9. Going out today somewhere else to MD.

 

[Fat]

That is a neat piece. The best ones that I have found were all in the pacific Nwest. They were used to make cedar log canoes and totem poles.
Don’t get European tools and First peoples or N.A. tools mixed up. They are the same but different.

 

[oldmxrat]

The shape of your puzzler looks to me like it could be part of a banner stone with that triangular cross section.

 

[Fat]

There are some really good east coasters folk on here they must not have seen yet.

 

[billb]

Congratulations on your nice recoveries