Is this natural or man made.

Ardrageen

I posted these pictures in the Archaeological section of boards but was advised to ask here.

I would appreciate any help identifying the following object I found recently in my garden. I often find fossils but I do not a clue what this is. It is the size of a 10 cent coin and weighs about 5 grams

Front view. I thought those marking looked man-made.




Side view




Underside

slowburner

Just my (ill informed) opinion...

Probably a fossil - maybe something from the limpet family?

I can't think of any man-made parallels (apart from the one suggested by Mocmo in the archaeology forum, and even that is doubtful).
The radial marks around the central perforation are minute. The only way they could be made artificially would be with a blade of some kind, and that would produce regular marks that would more than likely have continued all the way around.

The perforation itself is sub-circular on the dorsal surface and completely irregular on the ventral surface, so we can rule out mechanical boring.

The lamination visible in the second photo also points to it being an ecofact from a sedimentary rock.
Was it found in soils derived from limestone or sandstone bedrock?

These observations indicate that it is an ecofact rather than an artefact.

It might be worth contacting the Natural History Museum for a final verdict.

Hedgelayer

This reminds me, I found something on a beach before and it's quite odd looking.

I'm not sure if it's a thin vertrabe from a mammal or big shark or maybe a thirty year old spool of black fishing line incased in a white spool.
Which the elements crafted into something more natural looking.

I might get it checked out.

Ardrageen

Thank you for your reply. You may well be right about the limpet fossil idea.

slowburner wrote: »

Was it found in soils derived from limestone or sandstone bedrock?

Limestone