"No Artifact for You!"

There are 2 spring fed ponds in my backyard cornfield and to make room for more crops, the small woods around one was removed and a dry dam was erected.... I've found geodes & fossils for the 10 years I've lived here but since the dry dam was put in I've found Paleo tools and rock figures by the bucket full sifting the dirt piles left behind. After a good rain the new run off trenches and ground that used to be a small woods are covered with geodes, fossils, tools, rock art that seem Paleo after much research ( I even purchased a 1000x digital computer microscope) After posting the following pieces on a forum I will not name, I came away feeling like I was in the artifact version of Jerry Seinfeld's Soup Nazi episode. I checked for signs of working under a microscope of these pieces but it was "No artifact for You!" From those who commented. "Purely natural", "No signs of working", "Go learn what a real artifact looks like".... Without further Ado, here are pics of some of those pieces and hopefully someone besides me can appreciate them for everything that I see as amazing.[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

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These are interesting....
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And strange... [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I like your last image entry.  You have a carved red mammoth in relief that is symbolically red to show the blood being released at the time of death from a recent successful hunt.  It is a carved from botryoidal agate and is a beauty piece in it's own right but it is so much more.  At the bottom you can see the end of the trunk with it's clasping nose open.  Following the trunk upward you will begin to see an outline of a mammoth. You will note a small depression in the upper middle section of the body depicting the lethal wound that killed the mammoth from the hunt.  Below the mammoth is the released blood “red” that harbors the spirit or spirits being released into the spirit world.  The two very small polished “triangles” are the spirits.  You can see the smoothness of these “spirit depictions” with your newly acquired microscope.  These areas will be as smooth as glass....go a head...take a close look.  Right next to it you will see a smooth depression in which a thumb could fit and that is the area that is actually rubbed with a thump during the ceremony in order to release the spirits.  At the top you will also see an area of well crafted notching of 4 to 5 crude miniature mammoth figures itched into this rock. The scope will help you here again and these are merely a designations of the number of game killed commensurate with the ceremony.  This is a colorful well crafted stone age piece...congratulations.  Oh ! Don't worry about the critics as I can safely tell you these guys don't know anything about the subject.  P.S.  Go read my recent critique of GARDEN MAGIC'S image postings and you will learn more about the subject.  ROCKSTAR1

If I found 1 of something and was told it was naturally made , I would have accepted that, said cool rock, and carried on with life as I tossed that rock in my rock garden.... Instead that 1 turned into 7 more just like it and considering I've never found anything like them before, natural is the last word I would use in their description. I think this website is the most important thing anybody has ever done for ancient North American history in my lifetime. I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact history is their story and no longer my story ...

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The orange figurine is a buffalo for sure that has a well defined border ( I really like the cute little 4 legs that the artist carved into this piece) .  I would keep this if I found it and I certainly would keep that botryoidal agate piece depicting a mammoth as this has natural beauty over and above what the artist did to the piece which was minimal to say the least.  This is a gorgeous piece. Even though the creator of this piece used all the nature features of this rock to his advantage to show the mammoth, he did some nice trimming to bring it all together.  Botryoidal agate pieces are really nice when you get them.  I only have 2 pieces in my collection of  botryoidal mammoths that I would say are much nicer than this but that is all.  You also have a mammoth (the colorful flat piece) that has a lot of weathering/damage that is a good piece for beginners but not to someone like myself as I would not collect it.  As you begin to collect, you will begin to realize just how common these pieces are and you will ask the question why there aren't more collectors.  I don't have a good answer for you but a lot of it is has to do with the fact that they are not very observant and have grown up in the urban jungle so as to speak.  I could say the same about astronomy which is another pursuit I have.  They have never seen a dark sky and enjoy it's beauty.  Don't worry about those clowns (critics) that steered you in the wrong direction.  You already figured it out by your own ability to discern a pattern (pattern recognition) which you have and they don't. I could say something disparaging in biblical text about them but I won't.  Brad

There is a hill in between the 2 spring fed ponds that is one of the highest hills in our county... When you are at the top you can see for miles when facing directly south. I've always said it was a mound but I have a book from 1884 that is about the history from first settlers till 1883 ( our property is 2 miles from that settlement, one mile and a quarter from the section of the buffalo trace they called the Mud Holes or Mudhole trace because of the greener grass that grew where the buffalo had made them to cool off or whatever) The geologic section of the book said that hill was where the glacier stopped and on the map showing the different glacial geographic sections of Indiana, I saw that the little corner section of our county where I live is the only section that is Upper Pleistocene Undifferentiated. That explains why I find geodes & fossils here and others around our county don't. I find everything by the spring fed 2 pond on the east side of that hill or in the creek beds on the east side.... But tell me why I find animal bones atop that hill, pick them up because I make wind chimes, and a month later when I go back there are more? Clean white bones from every animal big (deer) to small. I picked up 4 bucket full of unbroken the first time (those are in a big tote in the first pic collage) & the second time -a month later -I only picked up the ones sitting in my rock garden (2cd pic of collage) because I got freaked out at the fact there were twice as many. It was a hilltop bone salvage yard.... And for some reason all these rocks I put under the microscope have an X on them ... Most unseen by the naked eye and some have a little dot hole on the X. The strange gets stranger and me being the Indiana Jones varient Nancy Drew has solved nothing but dig me deeper into my own private quixotic hell. 🤭[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
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WOW !  You have quite a pile of bones there and the bone decorations are just charming !!!! I'm not an expert on bones however there are some good bone forensic archaeologist that might be able to help answer your questions.  I'm not even going to hazard a guess. I looked at the one piece (mammoth figurine) that I said was borderline collectible again and I think you might have a piece of semi-petrified ivory as material for that artifact.  If it is lighter than your typical rock that you collect and if you can “shave off” pieces easily with a knife then it is probably ivory and it is relatively current, possible 12,000 to 10,000 years old.  If it has been well preserved, you might even be able to see the lamina striations in the ivory itself with your microscope as that would be the best test for confirmation. That would be cool to have. I like the ocker pigments that the artist used to “dress-up” this piece. The red of course represent the blood of the animal that was killed. Because of the material it would be collectible even though it is in somewhat of a degraded state. Good luck!

Thank you for posting your finds, some of these show human agency for sure. I cannot authenticate all of them as figure stones as ther is not enough 'certain iconogeaphy' to go on, one peeble catches my eye as a good figure stone example with framed, known symbology and convention, the mitten shaped find. Combined hand, Ape face, partial human face, and bear or paracerapharium? face profiles. Ancient and waterwarn type find found all over the world. A Nice crude point with ochre staining too in your selection.

Get used to the fact that if u contradict the mainstream accepted false facts then it will ALL BE NATURAL ROCK! But eventually with the fact that more and more people are now showing obviously man made artifacts with art that makes all the textbooks in accurate at best and down right sneaky underhanded lies at worst. Wait til u meet some self important guru of all artifacts never been in his hand make out like he is final authority on ur rocks. Because that is all he will say is natural rock! He will insinuate that u must be to stupid to read and should let the people that know all there is to know about a people with no written history. Oh wait it isn’t written in language he can read nor is it in textbooks! But due to what I call “textbook blindness” he will literally ignore what is carved in stone and tell u he knows all about what those cultures did or didn’t do! But me I just read the rocks and know we will prevail through the numbers of people stepping forward among all the ridicule from the educated! Happy hunting to u! Keep posting! Judy E

I love the rocks and bones in the photos, and it does seem the more you explore, the more questions there are and the fewer definitive answers you have. I think all serious rock art enthusiasts have come up against the 'experts' that call everything a 'naturall formation'; I know I have - and it does seem to come from a narrow minded 'expert' in an ivory tower who only reads books, watches videos, and talks to other narrow minded archaeology types.  There is a major Ivy League Univ. where I live (RI) that have a number of people more than willing to inform you that anything you find is a 'natural rock', unless it's a museum quality arrowhead. Keep the faith and keep looking and finding interesting