Need help identifying something I found in a Kentucky Burial mound

Would the natives have considered a cedar grove sacred? Would there be any reason for them to place 10' cubed rocks in the ground in meadows located in said cedar thicket/grove?

ETA: I guess so. Stone box graves

This is getting good.

originally posted by: benwyatt
a reply to: rickymouse

I didn't know you could temper rock.

I wonder what they had that would burn that hot.... or could a relatively cold wood fire have accomplished this?

I found out how they did it from an Indian fisherman I know. He used to go to a lot of tribal events where they did this kind of stuff when he was younger. The tools I found under a layer of white ash that was about a foot deep were all lined up in a row. According to this guy they still make tools in this fashion traditionally. They use hard stone to grind the soft diabase rocks then they partly bury them under a fire. It is similar to the way that steel is tempered. The artifacts I found are old because the outer layer had oxidized a lot so they were abandoned pretty long ago. They actually looked like sandstone pieces before I wire brushed the sand off them in water. The heat tempers them and then when tapped they ring like a bell and then they can be flaked. I do wonder why the tools were left under the ashes, but it is possible that they got left there till spring by the native Americans and they did not come back the next spring for some reason. They used to travel to the Escanaba area for the winter from here for the winter because Lake Michigan didn't freeze over.

Who knows what happened, the guy making them may have died somehow too. All I can do is guess what happened.

Another thing I found was a piece of rock with a little hole in it that resembles a stone pot pipe. I asked the Indian what it was and he said it was a rock prepared to be a pipe and said the little hole was the starting hole for the bigger hole later. He told me that the rock is ground to shape, then the hole is drilled with a crystal glued to a tiny hard stick by twirling it between the hands. Then it is put into the creek where it gets a blackish color from the water. There is a lot of Manganese in the ground water around here. After sitting for a couple of years in the stream the rock changes and the fire from the tobacco will not crack the stone. Sort of on the basis of taking the rocks from the lake to put around the sauna stove, the ones in the yard can explode when heated. Now exactly what causes this change, I don't know, but I do know about choosing rocks wisely for around a campfire. I tried to research what happens but I couldn't find that out. I did find the same information about lake rocks not exploding, but no official research as to why this was happening.

I haven't found anything to tell me who actually did this stuff on my land long ago. Most cultures actually made rock tools long ago. Three hundred years ago there were people from Europe making stone tools yet, both those living there and settlers that came here. Metal tools were expensive and many people did not have the ability to barter for them so produced stone axes.

You can temper steel with a campfire too, not quite as good as in a forge though.

a reply to: benwyatt

i would lean towards "man made" (or, created through some intelligent means).

I don't see it as a knife. Maybe a cotter pin or something?

Here is another weird thing. Stone burial artifacts from certain cultures are sometimes made out of the persons bones cemented together or mixed with clays. Some of the earliest headstones were actually this kind of thing. This tradition was scattered all throughout the world. Some of these potteries or cements were covered with gold leaf or gold dust was mixed in. That is one of the reasons why burial artifacts are protected. It could actually be the person. Now this scraper/blade you have does not look like they do. I have actually seen remnants of one of them. They burned the body or they left the buzzards eat the flesh then smashed up the bones and used them for rocks in the cement, scratching something into the stone as it set.

I may have my daughters do that with my cremated ashes making a headstone to put in the pet cemetery on our land. My wife wants the same thing. Hers will contain gold traces from her gold crowns. Someone with a metal detector will probably be stealing it off the land in the future. At least she will be able to travel

Did you get it on Mars?

I'm ambivalent on it -- it looks natural but that's hard to judge from a photograph. I don't see the kinds of worked edges that I expect from a tool.

Something that you found as a kid on a family trip BEFORE laws were put in place is actually fair game to own as a rule. It's hard to prosecute someone for taking something from an area if there weren't laws there at the time because what you were doing was not illegal. (so tell them someone in your family picked it up from there sometime in the 1950's.)

Take it to a museum and ask if someone can help identify it.

Well it seems there was a 12 foot skeleton exhumed from a nearby mound in the 1830's wearing copper and silver jewelry.

Giants exhumed in simpson co.
more
To the County Clerks Office.

ETA: Apparently they thought the cedar tree was a link between the underworld, the earth, and heaven and would explain the cedar grove in the center where the mounds radiate from.

originally posted by: benwyatt
Well it seems there was a 12 foot skeleton exhumed from a nearby mound in the 1830's wearing copper and silver jewelry.

Giants exhumed in simpson co.
more
To the County Clerks Office.

ETA: Apparently they thought the cedar tree was a link between the underworld, the earth, and heaven and would explain the cedar grove in the center where the mounds radiate from.

You'll find that those stories, when tracked down, are urban legends.

BTW, cedars (properly junipers) are very short-lived trees... most live to around 100 years or so. So that "grove" wouldn't be more than 150 years old, tops.

originally posted by: stuthealien
finders keepers mate ,tell the state to get lost they have no right to claim this ,they just think they do
the planet belongs to everyone ,try telling a dolphin you have the sole fishing rights here ,the law has gone to far no one has the right to claim authority of this item except you the finder/harvester.

when the law has gone to far the law needs changing fullstop.

I'd like to see you go out to the nearest First Nations community and see what they have to say on the subject. After all, digging up burial mounds is the same as somebody going out and digging up yer granny. Even if there is no law against it...still makes one a jerk.

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: benwyatt
Like accidentIy digging up someone's mother's grave and keeping a cool ring you find...although that IS achaeology...and artifacts should and need to be studied to learn from...

In our jurisdiction, there is more and more consultation being done with the FN so that we aren't just digging up graves and looting them. And discovering human remains is a whole different kettle of fish anyway.

a reply to: Byrd

didn't know cedars and junipers were synonymous. Don't cedars reproduce and the saplings keep the grove growing?

And to reiterate for others, there was no digging and a 7 year old did not know a pile of dirt from a grave.

You could always take them to the University of Kentucky, and see what they have to say.

I would.

originally posted by: benwyatt
a reply to: Byrd

didn't know cedars and junipers were synonymous. Don't cedars reproduce and the saplings keep the grove growing?

"Cedar" is the common name (one of several) for Junipers here in America. They reproduce from berries, but their range has changed considerably since the advent of "civilization." Because they are short-lived, you don't find them in mature forests of oak, pecan, maple, dogwood, and similar hardwoods. They are one of the "early succession" plants after a place has been cleared.

In general, other trees will come in and colonize after the junipers have come in.

And to reiterate for others, there was no digging and a 7 year old did not know a pile of dirt from a grave.

...this is actually part of why I think it's more likely that it's rock than artifact. However, it should be checked out by someone who's more familiar with artifacts of that area.

originally posted by: Byrd
You'll find that those stories, when tracked down, are urban legends.

If the 'authorities' are telling us that giants are urban legends, I'm going with exactly the opposite.

Archaeology is just another mind control tool used for social conditioning against the masses and is lying to us about the real history of the world.

I don't believe a single WORD they say anymore.

"The model of human prehistory built-up by scholars over the past two centuries is sadly and completely wrong, and a deliberate tool of disinformation and mind control. ...they demonstrate a systematic destruction of proofs that show another reality than that the official story. Falsifications and even destruction of such proofs has been common for more than two hundred years." LINK

“the biggest cover-up in the history of mankind is the history of mankind itself”

Has there been a giant cover-up? Why aren’t there public displays of gigantic Native American skeletons at natural history museums? ...according to some sources, the skeletons of giants have been covered up.

Specifically, the Smithsonian Institution has been accused of making a deliberate effort to hide the “telling of the bones” and to keep the giant skeletons locked away.

In the words of Vine Deloria, a Native American author and professor of law:

“Modern day archaeology and anthropology have nearly sealed the door on our imaginations, broadly interpreting the North American past as devoid of anything unusual in the way of great cultures characterized by a people of unusual demeanor. The great interloper of ancient burial grounds, the nineteenth century Smithsonian Institution, created a one-way portal, through which uncounted bones have been spirited. This door and the contents of its vault are virtually sealed off to anyone, but government officials. Among these bones may lay answers not even sought by these officials concerning the deep past.”

The Story Behind The Story

In U.S. Army Intelligence, I was trained that the truth most often lies in the exact opposite direction of the public rhetoric. You must learn this technique if you are to successfully glean the truth from news reports.

LEARNING TO THINK IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF PROPAGANDA

a reply to: Murgatroid

You realise of course, that your quotes are from a creationist, who wrote a book full of compromised evidence and known fabrications just to support his beliefs.

Michael A. Cremo (born July 15, 1948), also known by his devotional name Drutakarmā dāsa, is an American freelance researcher who identifies himself as a Vedic creationist and an "alternative archeologist"

He's an alternative archaeologist because he didn't study it. He just makes it up as he goes along. And just like the rest of the pseudo historians, he needs you to believe that people who do have a degree on the subject are all involved in a global, hundreds of years long conspiracy to hide the truth. Because if you didn't believe in that conspiracy, you'd realise he's talking out of his ass.

a reply to: Marduk

I don't care if the quotes come from Bozo the clown.

The truth is that Bozo the clown actually has FAR more credibility than anything coming from the mainstream apparatus.

Do you also question modern evolutionary theory on the basis that Darwin was not a scientist but a theologian?

Your argument makes just as much sense...

originally posted by: Murgatroid
a reply to: Marduk

I don't care if the quotes come from Bozo the clown.

Yeah, that's obvious, so you're saying that anything you ever quote is irrelevant

the truth is that Bozo the clown actually has FAR more credibility than anything coming from the mainstream apparatus.

All the choices you had and you went with "apparatus", this isn't the Republican party you know. Its quite evident that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Help me out here, what does Hindu creationism or Bozo the clown have to do with a Native American burial mound...

Do you also question modern evolutionary theory on the basis that Darwin was not a scientist but a theologian?

Your argument makes just as much sense...

Darwin has nothing to do with modern evolutionary theory, he provided a stimulus, but modern evolutionary theory is derived from genetics, cytology, systematics, botany, morphology, ecology and palaeontology.

But of course, I wouldn't expect someone who quotes a Hindu creationist as evidence in a thread about a Kentucky burial mound to understand that, from your responses elsewhere on this website I am not expecting you to understand anything at all

a reply to: benwyatt
It looks like it may have something to do with tanning hides. Just a guess.

originally posted by: Murgatroid

originally posted by: Byrd
You'll find that those stories, when tracked down, are urban legends.

If the 'authorities' are telling us that giants are urban legends, I'm going with exactly the opposite.
Archaeology is just another mind control tool used for social conditioning against the masses and is lying to us about the real history of the world.
I don't believe a single WORD they say anymore.

That's ok...we don't miss you.

originally posted by: benwyatt
Would the natives have considered a cedar grove sacred?

That would depend on the tribe. I'm not up to snuff on Native American archaeology (focusing on Egypt at the moment.) However, the cedars may have well moved in hundreds of years after the fact.

ETA: I guess so. Stone box graves

This is getting good.

Quite interesting!

a reply to: benwyatt

I know nothing about leather knapping, let alone FN artifacts, but I do know a little about geology. It is obviously not flint, quartz or granite. It could be oxidised basalt (which would explain why it seems "hard as granite"). But really needs to be seen in person to determine.

There is nothing about it that says it couldnt just be a piece of native bedrock. However if the rock type can be determined with accuracy and it was a type not found locally to where you found it, that would suggest human agency involved. Sorry, cant help any further.