stone age sharpening tool?

quercus

i found this stone today very close to where i also found a stone age axe head which i handed to the local museum and was vairified by the national museum of ireland.
it is flat and polished smooth it has alot of scratches on one side and not so much on the other.
there is one main scratch which comes out to the edge and is v shaped.
you can see in the picture it sits perfectly in my hand in this position.
could it be a sharpening tool? or natural?
what do you think

quercus

quercus wrote: »

i found this stone today very close to where i also found a stone age axe head which i handed to the local museum and was vairified by the national museum of ireland.
it is flat and polished smooth it has alot of scratches on one side and not so much on the other.
there is one main scratch which comes out to the edge and is v shaped.
you can see in the picture it sits perfectly in my hand in this position.
could it be a sharpening tool? or natural?
what do you think

on closer inspection i think it may actually be another axe head. see how it is narrow at the back and wider to the front, also see the taper snd curve up to the front i will post some more pictures tomorrow to illustrate this.

slowburner

quercus wrote: »

i found this stone today very close to where i also found a stone age axe head which i handed to the local museum and was vairified by the national museum of ireland.
it is flat and polished smooth it has alot of scratches on one side and not so much on the other.
there is one main scratch which comes out to the edge and is v shaped.
you can see in the picture it sits perfectly in my hand in this position.
could it be a sharpening tool? or natural?
what do you think

The marks on the stone are very likely from ploughing. That's probably why they are only on one side. My guess is the lighter cuts and scrapes are from earlier, horse drawn ploughs, the larger 'V' groove is from later mechanised ploughing.
I got terribly excited in this forum a while back, by a stone which had the most fantastic criss-cross 'designs' all over it. They looked almost symbolic.
I soon got put right.

The probability that the marks are from ploughing no way detracts from the possibility of the stone being an axe head - it's probably just wise to separate the marks and scratches from the possible importance of the overall form, the hardness of the stone, and the unusual occurrence of that type of stone in your locality.

quercus

hi all just an update i've being down in the area where i found the object i started this thread about looking for stones to build a garden wall. i'm always on the look out for natural stone:) my garden has a drop of maybe 12-15 feet down to the next level of feilds/flood plain. see the last photo.
while rooting out a couple of stones that i could see sticking out of the bank i realised they actually seemed to be placed together in a line so i cleared some more of the bank to expose the peice of wall in the last 2 photos.
I found a large stone with a semicircular wall around it which meets back at the bank and the wall, now the stone/axe head i found would have being in the middle of this large stone.
i followed the contour through the feilds, and found traces of this wall for over 700meters.
from the picture i have posted the wall stones look very random but in other areas the stones are not big but laid on the upright laying back against each other instead of on their flat. is this a building style that can be dated?

what do people think of the stone in the ground with the semicircular wall?

slowburner

This all looks very interesting.

Could you draw up a plan of the site, so that we can see how these embankments and walls relate to each other? An overall sketch would do.

What do you know of the history of this area?
What is the purpose of the embankment - is it related to the river which may have formed the terraces?

The low dry stone wall looks to me as if it was built to retain the embankment.
I'll stick my neck out and guess it was built around 100-150 years ago - any earlier and the tree roots would have dislodged most of the structure.
I have a strong personal interest in this particular style of dry stone wall, could you pm me the location?

dr gonzo

Great pics OP, thanks for putting them up. Your first set appears to be a cobble simply, perhaps a gabbro? While It can be hard to tell from the pics I would be very surprised if there were any indicators of production on it, therefore, unfortunately, not an axe.

Your second set is fantastic also, I cant comment myself but I would be interested to see what others say.

Keep up the good work!

slowburner

quercus wrote: »

<i followed the contour through the feilds, and found traces of this wall for over 700meters.
from the picture i have posted the wall stones look very random but in other areas the stones are not big but laid on the upright laying back against each other instead of on their flat. is this a building style that can be dated?>

Are the walls you mention in other areas anything like these?

quercus

thanks for the replys and slowburner yes i assume the wall in its completed state would have had a similar look to the photos you posted, i have a theory that it could possibly have being an old road i will pm you in the next day or so with location and an aerial map and my reasoning behind this.

below is my rough sketch of the cross section of the land that you looked for: please don't ever ask me to draw again:)


By gerryh2002 at 2012-07-05

this is the axe head i originaly found near my mysterious semicircular hole in the ground with large stone in the middle:the smaller object i found close to the axe head seemed to be like sea shell of some sort it was'nt stone but the museum said it was not of importance,But to me it is out of the ordinary for this area found beside the head there has to be a link???



By gerryh2002 at 2012-07-05

heres another peice of the wall in the next feild to me this bit showed up after a digger was in pulling out some of the ditch you can see the ground line where the grass is rising up to the tree trunk and down again. it seems to be burried a few feet back and down in the bank probably due to soil movement and erosion from above wasning down and burrying it over the centuries you can also see where the digger pulled the soil away from the roots of the tree.

By gerryh2002 at 2012-07-05

the same peice of wall wider angle. the drop is not as steep here between the upper and lower feilds because the farmer graded the soil to make an new entrance to the lower feilds. (seen as the slope and tyre tracks from left to right)

By gerryh2002 at 2012-07-05

this peice is about 10 meters to the right of the last photos and only showed up in the past few weeks, cattle have being clawing up the bank in the wet weather


By gerryh2002 at 2012-07-05

see how the cattle have torn the bank away alot of stones and muck low down around it.

By gerryh2002 at 2012-07-05


sorry for the big post but this area always facinates me and im always trying to unravel it and the person who used my prehistoric axe at the bottom of my garden:)

slowburner

Your section drawing helps to understand the site, it's fine.
I wonder if the circular area could have been a small fulacht fiadh ?
And I wonder if the shell like object could be a swan mussel. These used to be abundant in Irish rivers, much less so nowadays.

Degsy

If you can dig out an old map of the area,see whats indicated where the wall is now.

Gee Bag

Congrats on finding the axe head OP, it looks great.

The pics of stone walls you have posted look like low revetting walls for the substantial earthen banks/slopes indicated in your sketch map. The stone appears to be too loosely arranged to have any real structural bearing function. I would suggest they are of relativley modern date and were built for decoration and/or to stop soil slipping rather than preventing the bank from colllapsing.

I don't know what the function of the circular stone feature is, but it's definitley not a fulacht. It appears to be sitting in topsoil/overburden on the surface of the natural/subsoil. This would indicate that it is of fairly recent date (by which I mean within the last few hundred years).

If you want to have a look at the historic maps of the surrounding area try the OSI link. (Historic 6" series is earlier than the 25" series)
http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,591271,743300,0,10

If you want to look for other monuments in the area have a look here
http://webgis.archaeology.ie/NationalMonuments/FlexViewer/

slowburner

Gee Bag wrote: »

I don't know what the function of the circular stone feature is, but it's definitley not a fulacht. It appears to be sitting in topsoil/overburden on the surface of the natural/subsoil. This would indicate that it is of fairly recent date (by which I mean within the last few hundred years).

My first thought was a pet burial.

slowburner

I agree with GB, that the retaining wall is more decorative than functional.
Was there any evidence of burning in the circular pit - any fragments of animal bone or charcoal?
Might it just have been a temporary place for a fire?

quercus

thanks for the replys guys,
i have come to a conclusion lately that this wall may have being an old road/track way before the local landlords estate house was built mid/late 1700s from what i have read over the years roads were often rerouted or new roads built to suit the landlord so his estate could be private and not have to see the poor folk. as i said in a previous post this wall is at a point between upper and lower feilds along a contour and continues for over 700 meters with the remains of articulated stones visable at different points throughout this bank, and if i follow this line through towards the local estate house it would continue right through the gardens and close to the house. now there is no difference in height levels in the demense anymore due to landscaping and leveling that would of happened over the years (to keep up with latest fashions) but on the black and white os map a faint parch mark or line can be seen going this direction.and when i looked at the 1837/1842 maps online and noticed at the southern end of the bank and wall a road coming down through the feilds towards the river with a few building on it which is no longer there or visable but would meet in perfectly with my bank and wall, which is not recorded on these first maps so would imply it was out of use by then, but what puzzels me is that if it was an old road pre 1700s pre estate, would you build a road on low boggy ground prone to flood in winter? (and summer this year) i know it is the most level area as the above feilds are sloped down. were old roads planed on a line of least resistance following a river?
Thanks gee bag for those links the national monument one is great.
and slowburner there were no sign of bone of any kind or charcoal staining or flecks a thought crossed my mind today that this could be a large stone that fell or got disloged out of the bank/wall above it in the past and the smaller rubble stones gathered around it? just a thought.

slowburner

quercus wrote: »

slowburner there were no sign of bone of any kind or charcoal staining or flecks a thought crossed my mind today that this could be a large stone that fell or got disloged out of the bank/wall above it in the past and the smaller rubble stones gathered around it? just a thought.

Could be, but if that was the case, you'd expect a gathering of a greater range of sizes of stones, particularly smaller ones, no?
It still looks like a small pit to me which has been crudely lined with stones of a similar size.

bogwalrus

Might it just not be the river bed from long ago instead of a pit with stones in a circle? If you dug more to the side you might find plenty more stones on same level.

What you have in your drawing as a flood plain could have been years ago a much bigger river no? That means that wall is the side bank of the river.

My other theory is that its not a flood plain but they claimed back the river by dumping loads of stones and soil in order to make a path or something else? Probably just coincidence? I'm no geologist so noobie guesses.

quercus

bogwalrus wrote: »

Might it just not be the river bed from long ago instead of a pit with stones in a circle? If you dug more to the side you might find plenty more stones on same level.

What you have in your drawing as a flood plain could have been years ago a much bigger river no? That means that wall is the side bank of the river.

My other theory is that its not a flood plain but they claimed back the river by dumping loads of stones and soil in order to make a path or something else? Probably just coincidence? I'm no geologist so noobie guesses.

thanks for your interest, and yes your right the river would have meandered back and forth over the centuries and being much shallower and wider until it was deepened and had banks and towpaths built in the 18th century for navagation purposes .this flood plain was very boggy, and during draining in 2001/2002 i could see remains of ancient hazel and birch stumps being dug up its a very deep peaty organic layer full of plant remains i even got some bog oak for the garden. before you hit bedrock in the middle could be 10-15ft deep or more. the digger driver said he pushed the arm down and diddnt hit a bottom. so i would say the flood plain is natural and not reclaimed land.