Artifact a Rare Find

[Faustus]

[Klingan]

Grinders of bone? I would really like to see one of those. I would imagine them to wear off very quickly.

 

On the topic of grinding in general, I have seen calculations that in a society based on a bread diet about every 10th person need to work in full time with grinding.

[Faustus]

Grinders of bone? I would really like to see one of those. I would imagine them to wear off very quickly.

 

On the topic of grinding in general, I have seen calculations that in a society based on a bread diet about every 10th person need to work in full time with grinding.

 

Thanks Klingan,

 

I believe the grinder mentioned was the "mortar" part of the two part "grinder system". This piece of granite in my images is quite heavy, and I imagine that sometimes the tool kit could be very heavy from the accumulation of the components. Imagine, then a grinder made up of the granite pestle and a hip bone with its concave surface to press the grain into to pulverize it. That might be preferable to a clay pot which might be inferior in several ways. The best I can do on that is that when looking for images of comparable pestles I recall seeing the mention of bone as the mortar component. Wouldn't that have been some bony part of a bison?

 

The bread most likely would be more like a "taco" shell than the leavened bread we're used to. Not being very well informed about the native American's diet, it might be similar to that of some of the poor indians of Northern Mexico today, or you can click HERE for an informed viewpoint.

 

I too gave some thought to the problem of the time involved in grinding flour. It does appear that corn (even native american corn) would lend itself to dealing with the problem of mass/quantity better than most other grains. It's been many years, but I remember reading a novel (Spirit Lake/McKinley Kantor-1961) which went into a lot of detail about the cultivation and production of corn by Indians in what is now Iowa/Minnesota. One of the character's names happened to be "Corn Sucker"; an English translation of course.

[Sequens]

Hi Faustus, I have seen two grinding stones. Both were found along with many other items on a farm property in New Jersey. I found the second one myself. It was exposed about 3 feet below the surface of the ground, when a tree blew over in a storm. All the artifacts there had a tawny color (tan-brown). Both grinders were about as big as yours but did not have that notch like your example. One of the bowl-like stones that you use them with was found as well. It was a flatish rectangular stone with a oval bowl shaped cavity scooped out, but not very deep. Maybe 1 1/2 inches. But I am working from memory, several years back. We turned over the finds to the land owner.

 

One cool thing was he lent us the mortar and pestal while we rented a house on the property to grind seed in. We had a bird with a birth defect (deformed beak) and we had to break open the seed. The owner had gotten an estimated date from an archeological professor but I can not remember it exactly. It was either 3 or 6 thousand years old. It was neat to put the thing back to daily use again.

 

The grinder was smooth on one end and rough on the other.

[Faustus]

Hi Faustus, I have seen two grinding stones. Both were found along with many other items on a farm property in New Jersey. I found the second one myself. It was exposed about 3 feet below the surface of the ground, when a tree blew over in a storm. All the artifacts there had a tawny color (tan-brown). Both grinders were about as big as yours but did not have that notch like your example. One of the bowl-like stones that you use them with was found as well. It was a flatish rectangular stone with a oval bowl shaped cavity scooped out, but not very deep. Maybe 1 1/2 inches.

We always wonder about how or why a tool is lost. Is it dropped? Or stashed somewhere and never retrieved? Was its loss the scene of violence during which the treasured object no longer seemed of any importance? The

[Sequens]

I wondered about how they are left as well. The other objects in this group were arrowheads mainly. I can't remember if there were any axe heads. There had been at least one archiologist at the site, and some university teachers as well, but all I heard was that the finds in this area were usually located on southern facing slopes near water.

 

Being left as the result of enemy action is definately a possibility. But considering the heavy weight of the mortars and pestals particulary, perhaps they were not carried with a group, if the group made some sort of seasonal migration. They might have been stashed and left to use when the group returned next year. If the group made a permanent move to a different area, they still may not have been considered worth it to carry with. They didn't have horses, so would have to carry or drag everything themselves. The type of rock used here for implements also did not match local rocks that I could see, which made them less easy to replace. That argues against leaving behind. But I wonder if there was traffic in such rocks that made it assumable that they could get new ones easiliy.