Experts of STW. Ide...
 

MegaSack DRAW - 6pm Christmas Eve - LIVE on our YouTube Channel

[Closed] Experts of STW. Identify these stone things I've found.

28 Posts
21 Users
0 Reactions
282 Views
Posts: 4132
Full Member
Topic starter
 

Found the round one in a field on the South Downs, feels like chalk or a man made substance. Dark thing in North Norfolk, not a Norfolk stone, granite or slate.

[img] [/img]

[url= https://c7.staticflickr.com/6/5614/31106491462_82b1bc79ea_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://c7.staticflickr.com/6/5614/31106491462_82b1bc79ea_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/PoLUbj ]Stone thingies[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/21556621@N06/ ]pictonroad[/url], on Flickr

[url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5721/31106490832_4e6df86fc1_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5721/31106490832_4e6df86fc1_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/PoLTZs ]Stone thingies[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/21556621@N06/ ]pictonroad[/url], on Flickr


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 12:49 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Baby robin poo?


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 12:50 pm
Posts: 13192
Free Member
 

cannonball? any famous battles fought nearby? you're on south coast so possibly involved in a war with the french!
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12948 ?


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 12:58 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

WMD?


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 1:05 pm
Posts: 77690
Free Member
 

cannonball

I was thinking some sort of shot also.

The other one looks like an Ice Age hockey puck.


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 1:08 pm
Posts: 4132
Full Member
Topic starter
 

North Norfolk was on the Peddars Way, a roman road. I've found Roman artefacts there but occupation has been continuous before and since.


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 1:10 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Guess ....

1) Base for a wooden post 2) Weapon


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 2:37 pm
Posts: 6208
Full Member
 

one on the right reminds me of cement clinker
no idea how that would end up in the wild though


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 3:16 pm
Posts: 151
Free Member
 

They look suspiciously like stones to me.


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 3:22 pm
Posts: 28
Free Member
 

The one on the left is a stone age carving of the roadrunner.


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 4:20 pm
Posts: 4132
Full Member
Topic starter
 

Don't tell me I've beaten STW knowledge of 'everything'? 😯

😉


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 4:25 pm
Posts: 0
Full Member
 

I think you have found the limit of our collective.... not hard was it?

My thoughts are:

The Norfolk one is a rubbing stone to smooth out leather, hence the flat surface that looks to have been smoothed by rubbing. Popular with Romans leather, they're even made pants out of it.

The South Downs one I think is a water butt plug or something like a stopper for watering cans (or whatever was used way back when) Were you near Clactonbury Ring? That's an old settlement, plenty of local farming going on around there.

Just a couple of wild guesses.

Have you emailed Tony Robinson ???


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 4:31 pm
Posts: 0
 

The one on the right MIGHT be an ecinoid, a sea urchin. Can you see five lines running down from the most pointy end? It looks rather weathered or beaten up if it is. They are common in the Chalk, where they tend to get replaced or filled with flint. So not worth breaking open, probably all flint.


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 5:21 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

White one looks like a flint nodule to me (10 years an archaeologist).
Naturally formed when the chalk was forming many, many years ago.

APF


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 5:21 pm
Posts: 4079
Full Member
 

Bikebuoy

Leather pants and butt plugs. 😯


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 5:45 pm
Posts: 4132
Full Member
Topic starter
 

(10 years an archaeologist).

Any guess on the other?


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 5:48 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Nope. Might just be a stone.

APF


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 6:56 pm
Posts: 33524
Full Member
 

The round one could easily be just a natural round stone, but could also be a sling stone, the grey one, bikebuoy's suggestion makes as much sense as anything, it certainly has the look of a piece of stone shaped and polished on one side to smooth the surface of some material or other.


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 7:07 pm
Posts: 33524
Full Member
 

I'm wondering if the round grey stone might possibly be a sharpening stone for edged tools or weapons, what's known these days as a sharpening puck:

[img] [/img]


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 8:05 pm
Posts: 23056
Full Member
 

The one on the left is mine. Its a bit like a paperweight but I use it to stop North Norfolk from blowing away. I'll be furious if someone's moved it and North Norfolk isn't where I left it.


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 8:14 pm
Posts: 0
Full Member
 

Ohhh yeah, a sharpening stone.. good call.


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 8:18 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Is one a rock and the other a hard place?


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 8:20 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

The one from the chalk is a flint nodule. It is not man made as you at looking at the chalk flint interface on the outside with no tool marks on them. Any artefact that has been made will have some sort of indication of manufacture. It may be hollow and have some quartz crystals in. I have one vey similar and it is almost perfectly spherical. It rattled a bit so I used a diamond cutter to slice it in half but no crystals this time.

The other one looks to have tool marks on it and may have been shaped. It could have been used for sharpening or grinding, possibly the latter but that is a guess. The rock looks to be fine grained and possibly igneous, with the choncoidal fracture on the top edge in the first picture.

Both interesting rocks though, but I am a geologist so no surprise there really 😉


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 8:29 pm
Posts: 7121
Free Member
 

Bronze age golf ball and an early wheel prototype..


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 8:34 pm
Posts: 33524
Full Member
 

maccruiskeen - Member
The one on the left is mine. Its a bit like a paperweight but I use it to stop North Norfolk from blowing away. I'll be furious if someone's moved it and North Norfolk isn't where I left it.

[img] [/img]


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 8:46 pm
Posts: 17851
Full Member
 

Meteorite on the left, dinosaur poo on the right.


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 10:51 pm
Posts: 8873
Free Member
 

Worlds shittest flick book?

(Though I like the narrative)


 
Posted : 26/11/2016 10:54 pm
Posts: 4132
Full Member
Topic starter
 

Cheers Manton.

I tucked Norfolk under the corner of the desk phone, it should still be there.


 
Posted : 27/11/2016 10:17 am
Posts: 7995
Free Member
 

The round one could be slingshot shot, made of clay:

[img] [/img]

It's my mother that's the archaeologist, but I remember these were produced in great numbers, masking them a relatively common find. Certainly I saw a few around Maiden Castle in Dorset.


 
Posted : 27/11/2016 10:59 am