19 replies to this topic

[stonecarver]

Hi Sam,

if you take the time to read my posts here Carefully, you will note that I pointed out that I Have indeed seen objects like these Many times... they are atypical of the sort of broken bits of slate that are commonly found in fieldwalking or excavations... and are merely the result of past agricultural activity.

I can go into my garden, dig around and I guarantee I will find some just like the ones you are showing here.

Please, take them to a Lithics expert, or a Group of people with the relevant expertise. If you think the British Museum cannot put you in touch with a person with the relevant experience in lithics... you Might try... Mark Edmonds, University of York. He'll put you straight... for sure....  

Morphology means nothing without evidence of manufacture. And the things you are showing us simply do not have the characteristics of stone implements.

For whatever reason, you are absolutely convinced they are tools... yet you seem not to want to have anybody with more experience with that exact subject disagree with you, and You are the one who thinks YOUR position is the only one that can be correct, not me... if you read my posts carefully...

[sam]

SC, i have indeed read all posts correctly but Firstly i want to apologise for my out burst, your negative replies are exactly what i was expecting & which i have heard a few times before.....i cant expect any different really due to their not being any One with knowledge on the pieces themselves, so i apologise & although it probably has, but i do hope this hasn't built a barrier between mutual appreciative lithic lovers. What i really must get across & stress though is im not an amature with regard to lithic material, its been my passion for over 20 years......i have also seen Thousands of pieces of naturally broken Slate (sedimentary) over the years of all shapes & sizes that are remains of 16th roofing & similar along with probably more Millions in naturally shaped stones & broken flint, but never like these which is why i am adamant about their nature. There are no large amounts of this material where i find these.....none on the surface & none when pits are dug. Another issue that must be addressed is a simple One & should be recognised by all lithic lovers alike which is the fact all natural material which was around at what ever time was used & tested for its durability & strength for tool & implements alike purposes. Before flint was found to be the ideal, as you know other material was used & finding lower Palaeolithic stone tools (which is a classic era regarding the unknown or uncertain activity) along with these slate pieces on just a very small piece of my Thousands of Acre's of land, its possible these were used & discarded over a short period of time prior to flint, because of its weakness for such multi purpose jobs. Slate tools along with Rock Crystal & Obsidian are probably the rarest implements to be found & this is solely due to the fact when people see slate on the surface, they instantly ignore its possible history & naturally assume it as being broken roofing, this is the case in probably the majority of all circumstances, iv been on over 70 professional digs during my 20 years, some of which have been Tudor building remains etc....expectedly slate was found on the surface & below in vast quantities, huge pieces along with small shattered remains.....in all the digs i have been involved in i have never come across pieces in this form with the smoothing of edges & the common duplicated shapes & size before.....& like i said, iv seen Thousands of pieces of slate while working. There have indeed been numerous examiners stumped by the smoothing & shapes who have handled these, but were not educated enough in this area to state their mark but all have agreed the smoothing & duplicated shape & size seemed far too consistant to be of natural occurance, the smoothing especially was diagnosed as an impossibility occurance from natural process but again were unable to put their name on it being human formed because of their lack of knowledge or certainty. I agree you could probably go into your garden & find slate as you so rightly said, but slate isn't found naturally here where i live...there are absolutely no natural slate beds here at all anywhere....the closest natural sedimentary slate beds are over 500 miles away in a different country. But to ease any more frustration on either side i wont be proceeding with this topic any longer as its quite clear its a waste of my time trying to achieve the results im searching for...i say this in the nicest sence with the Christmas spirit in tow......roll on topic#2  

....have a great Xmas to all, may you & all loved Ones be blessed with good health & happiness.

Kindest Sam.

[sam]

Good morning my friend, sorry for the exceptionally long duration awaiting a reply but i haven't accessed the site since my last post...not having the pleasure of knowing your personality or even having the slightest insight into your perception of me, i didn't (to be honest) expect such a pleasant message from your good self due to the distant theories of the Slate pieces between us. I thank you for your very kind offer of having them semi analized but due to my belief's about their rarity, im rather dubious about sending them anywhere without my presence....silly as that may seem but when you believe you have something no One else has you tend to (as im sure you can relate to) hold on tight to it lol   ...i have actually framed a few of them now to send as reference to who ever wants to see them.....if you can just for a second have an open mind about these pieces, tell me what you really think about these pics....clearly implements, the notch pieces have an exact identicle to flint pieces i have here...right down to the length, depth & degree of the notch...look at the flint notch scraper & tell me the notches are not the same as on the Slate pieces...theres a whole row of notched across the top of the framed pieces...the other pics are just for pleasure viewing, showing what iv been doing over the past few weeks....let me know what you think overall & dont be shy lol  


http://i145.photobuc...craperwithe.jpg
http://i145.photobuc...scraperwi-1.jpg
http://i145.photobuc...enotchscrap.jpg
http://i145.photobuc...thicimpleme.jpg
http://i145.photobuc...pedflints-1.jpg
http://i145.photobuc...ithicmixofs.jpg
http://i145.photobuc...toolsincscr.jpg


Rgds Steve.

[Nigel]

I can see no evidence of working on a lot of those.

You seem to be amazingly busy on Ebay Steve.

[stonecarver]

Hi Sam,

you certainly have an extensive collection of flint implements. I can understand why you have drawn the conclusion that some of the slate objects might also be man-made (due to their morphology), as indeed they Do bear similarities to some of the flint objects you have and do, (two-dimensionally at least) appear similar to particular classes of flint implements.

Thanks for the kind reply... and incidentally, whilst I might sometimes have a very different opinion about something (archaeologically speaking), I am very happy to accept that I can be wrong! (if the evidence is good). After all, it's when there are differences of opinion that we get good debate (which is partly what this site is about I guess)... and only by discussing things openly and as objectively as possible (not always easy I admit!) might we make new discoveries.

I'll mail you with more details about the microscopy study.

Cheers!

Stonecarver