Find's Treasure Forums
Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!
You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.
Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.
Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.
Click here to register!
Need Support Help?
Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you
Changed email? Forgot to update your account with new email address? Need assistance with something else?, click here to go to Find's Support Form and fill out the form.
my friends find today
- Thread starter chadwick
- Start date
flinthunter
Well-known member
The time period on this would be somewhere between 1,500 and 5,000 years ago, give or take a few hundred years. Value, not much. The bit is broken. Whatever someone is willing to pay for it.
ironman200081
Active member
Chadwick,
What state was it found in? 3/4 groove axes appear during the Late Archaic period here in Missouri. I am curious about the hole in the top. I have not seen a 3/4 axe with a hole at the top. Also, the hole on the side appears to be intentional rather than damage. Judging from the photos (but I would need closer images to confirm) I think your buddy's axe was salvaged by a Woodland culture and used as a mortar-metate for grinding grain or oil seeds. Again, hard to tell from your photos.
Value is approximately $45.
What state was it found in? 3/4 groove axes appear during the Late Archaic period here in Missouri. I am curious about the hole in the top. I have not seen a 3/4 axe with a hole at the top. Also, the hole on the side appears to be intentional rather than damage. Judging from the photos (but I would need closer images to confirm) I think your buddy's axe was salvaged by a Woodland culture and used as a mortar-metate for grinding grain or oil seeds. Again, hard to tell from your photos.
Value is approximately $45.
ironman200081
Active member
They pecked them out by hand with a hammerstone, including the grooves. It took weeks to make one. In contrast, a skilled flint knapper could hammer out a perfect arrowhead in under an hour. Tell your pal to look at it under magnification and you can actually see the peck marks.
silversweeper
New member
Hey, great find. Monetary value isn't always the way to look at such relics. That piece is very unique and I'd love to have it in my collection. A few questions, however. Can you give us a size on it? The reason that I ask is that I'm not sure about the theory that the hole is from mortar/metate use (maybe the hole in the side but probably not the one on the edge). The sides of the hole in the edge appear to be pretty straight from top to bottom and has a "sharp" rim. Most holes/depressions on metates are wider at top than bottom, like a bowl. Also, judging from the picture with the hand holding it...that is a pretty small axe, and they may have been making something a bit more creative out of it than a metate.. one possibility for the edge hole is a paint pot. I have some pretty cool stone paint pots that have small holes like that, some even still have residue of color inside (one with black, the other red). ...or it may have even been used as a practice or teaching stone for an apprentice stone worker (have seen some very odd pieces that have no other explanation). I would like to know if the hole in the edge has grooves running around the inside, sort of like a nut for a bolt would? They won't be like screw threads, though, more parallel. If so then the hole was drilled rather than pecked or ground. Have your friend look at the sides of the hole with a magnifying glass. If there are grooves there may also be a small protrusion in the bottom of the hole. Native cultures that worked with stone like this often used a piece of cane and sand to drill holes. Could be that they had plans to make a banner stone out of the piece, or (and probably not because it's the wrong type of stone) a pipe. I have an unfinished banner stone in my collection that was probably tossed aside because the piece of cane broke off about 3/4 of the way through the hole. There is still a slender cylinder of stone sticking up from the bottom of the hole in my piece where the void in the center of the cane would have been left after the cane rotted away. A very cool piece that took a couple of us relic hunters sitting around and talking about it to figure out. In any case, that is a very cool little axe with later reuse and there isn't any way I'd sell it if it were mine.....chipped or not. A lot of pre-history there and like an earlier poster said, that was most likely picked up by a native from the Woodland culture and reused. What part of the country was it found in? If your friend is really interested in selling it......I may be an interested in making an offer.