Expert: Ralph Salier - 1/25/2010

Question
QUESTION: I have a stone hammer head I found in Western Montana while I was still a boy.  It definitely has the groove around it indicating that it was used with a handle.  I also have two other pieces of stone that may or may not be implements as I cannot tell without inspection via an experienced eye.  

First, I would like to know if you can give me a time value for the hammer head.  Then I would like to know if the other two pieces are manmade or natural, and if they have a time frame to them.  

Finally, I am curious as to their worth both archaeologically and monetarily.  Note also that the hammer head is chipped and cracked at one part.  This is the way it was found and may have been discarded by its user as a result.  The other two pieces are pristine.

One other piece of information regarding the hammer head is that it was discovered near the Flathead Indian Reservation about a quarter of a mile from where I grew up.  This may or may not place it as far as tribe of manufacture.  The other two pieces were found in a similar area so far as I recall, but I am vague as to location as it was when I was a boy and was not concerned with anything beyond that they were a curiosity.

ANSWER: Hi Vernon,

These are late Archaic artifacts.  The Hammer Stone with the groove is actually a mallet used in mining operations.  These are often found in quarry sites where they are digging for flint, obsidian and other materials to make stone tools.  The round stone with the chip may also be a hammer stone  but used in the production of large blades.  If you could send me more pics of this one ( on the left) close up on the front, back and sides, that would help in the identification.  

The rectangular item appears to be a mano or grinding stone.  This would have been used in conjunction with a "metate" or the base stone.  But as with the hammer stone , I need to see better pics.  Close ups of both faces and the thinner of the two edges.  What I am looking for are tell tail scratches that go across the face,  perpendicular to the long axis.  

The round stone on the right may also be a mano given the flat bottom.  But here again, I would need some close up pics of the flat face.  This too would have been used in conjunction with a metate.

They would have been grinding seeds, acorns, nuts and any other foods that they wanted to grind in order  to make flat bread, a gruel  or some other food item like an Indian pancake.    

Chances are, the manos and round hammer stone would have been found in a different place then the mallet but since these tools were highly prized, they may be found in the same proximity since these people were not sedentary all year long but migrated with the animals they relied on for food.  The mallet may also have been used for breaking open large bones for marrow, highly prized source of high quality protein.  They may also have used such a tool for breaking nuts, hard seeds and other food items.  

As an archaeologist, the value of these tools would come in part with the site information.  Taken out of context, they have some informational value and perhaps some morphological value but, the value to help better understand the site itself is now lost.  From a commercial aspect, I do not place a value on artifacts as this then encourages others to illegally dig and damage the integrity of sites.  When "artifact hunters" dig in a site, they destroy the ability of a professional to properly reconstruct the site.  Think of a site as being a book and doing the excavation as tearing the pages out of the book.  If you do not keep very good records of what was on each page, you can't reconstruct it properly.  

Now chances are, these were picked up in a plowed field.  In this case, the plow has already disturbed the top pages of the book so it is not as critical.  But these artifacts would help the professional identify where the site is and its age and if it is worth digging at the site.  

Don't feel bad about this, as a kid, I too collected artifacts from the family farm.  When I was 10, my parents invited a university archaeologist to have a field school on the farm and they allowed me to participate.  The archaeologist instilled in me the preservation concept and I never again collected artifacts with out keeping very careful records of where they were found and I NEVER dug for them,

The best thing to do, is to try and remember where these were found and to mark a map to that effect.  Then turn these materials over along with the map to the state archaeologist of Montana so that they can get the site on record.  That way the site can be preserved and perhaps excavated by professionals.  In that case then, your artifacts can be reunited with its site  to round out the data package.

The age of the mallet is between 4 and 7 thousand years old.  The other materials may be of a similar age but these types of artifacts were used by many later cultures as well.  The close up pics may help me to identify their ages based on the wear pattern.

I hope this helps.







---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I appreciate your speedy reply.  I am also astonished at the possible age of the hammer stone.  I was supposing something more in the range of 150-300 years!  My question now is how I can send more than one picture at a time.  I ganged up the ones you saw as the site would not allow me to send more than one.  I am going to send one at a higher resolution to see if it is at a quality you can work with.  If it isn't, I can take better pictures.  The ones I have were all high resolution and fairly close up, but not done in the best light and I did not use a tripod.

As to the locations, I tell exactly where I got the hammer stone; it was part of a bank of stones piled up to create a foundation for an old building on a neighbor's property.  All the property (neighbor's and ours, along with other's) was part of an old homestead, so I have to assume that the stones were collected up fairly close by.  The locale has lots of glacial rock and rocky ground.  The east shore of Flathead lake is only about a hundred yards away form that point.  The other two were undoubtedly gathered by me on the local beach of the lake within no more than a quarter of a mile up the shore.  I used to collect stones of interesting shapes and colors there when I was a boy.  I am pretty certain I did not get then elsewhere.  Since that time my father told me that the indians used to camp right there seasonally every year for ages.  They were probably Salish (Flathead) or one of the related tribes, but could have been Blackfoot or Crow as Montana has all three; Dad did not mention which, as far as I recall.  The northern edge of the Flathead Indian Reservation is actually only about ten miles south.  

The pictures of the artifact with the chip are all of the hammer or mallet from different angles.  In the composite I went before the mallet had several lining the left side of the file.  The rectangular artifact was pictured from four angles down the center and the other mano were down the right side of the file.

So, again, my question is, how do I send more than one picture?  And another question is, how large a file can you accept?

Answer
Hi Vernon,


You can send them directly to me:  rsalier@hotmail.com  

At this address, I can accept files upwards of 10meg each.  However, it takes a long time for a file this size to resolve.  Try to keep each image under 1 meg if possible.  

The glacial rocks were a favorite of the Archaic peoples. They did not need  to do a lot of work  the "finish them".   

The end of the mallet (with chip and with out) close up would be of interest.  

The modern Native American, had metal  tools as far back as 1700 through trade with French fur hunters etc... Many hand axes, trinkets and other metal tools were highly favored by them.  The stone tools such as  the mallet would not be fully grooved as technology had changed over time to a point were it would have been handle hafted only exposing one end in later mallet forms. (up to 1000 years ago, the new form came into being).  

Manos on the other hand remained more or less the same through today.  The Native Mexicans and Native Americans of the SW still use manos and metates to grind corn and other grains for making bread etc...


As to location, since you know more or less where these were found, it would be easy for you to mark a map and send  them to the state archaeologist if you are interested in doing so.  Other wise, you can give them to a local historical museum with the map.  Many like to have historical artifacts for display.

I look forward to seeing the pics.

Ralph