Crude stone "tools" found in northern Minnesota may be at least 13,000 years old

National Geographic website ^ | February 15, 2007 | Stefan Lovgren

[TXnMA]

If this is the best example of a stone "tool" from their assemblage, I'll definitely wait to call them ,"man-made tools" until after I have examined them under (at least) a stereomicroscope...

I see no clear evidence of knapping on this one. It looks like a "geofact" (naturally chipped pebble) to me.

[TXnMA]

Heads up! Minnesota "tool" (or "geofact") photo...

[Egon]

If this is the best example of a stone "tool" from their assemblage, I'll definitely wait to call them ,"man-made tools" until after I have examined them under (at least) a stereomicroscope...

It's the middle of February, and it's been cold as hell up here. That could be a potato!

[Brilliant]

Yeah... I'm not sure why a 13,000 year old stone tool would be quite that crude anyway. We're not talking Australopithicus, here.

[Reaganesque]

THAT'S where I left them!! Silly me.

[capydick]

Crude stone "tools" found in northern Minnesota may be at least 13,000 years old, a team of archaeologists recently announced.

Probably has this guy's fingerprints on them:

[TXnMA]

We're not talking Australopithicus, here.

Exactly! Are we supposed to believe that Early Americans' lithihic technology leaped from this "dinged pebble" to the sophisticated and beautiful (...and still tough-to-replicate with primitive knapping tools) Clovis points -- in only one thousand years?!?

[sgtbono2002]

Let me know if they find that pair of waterpump pliers I lost last week.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Early loser of stone tools.

[muawiyah]

Not all who managed those early trips to America were equally versed in flint knapping.

[WBL 1952]

That was discarded last week by a Minnesota auto mechanic that voted for Jesse Ventura and Keith Ellison

[DManA]

Man lived here BEFORE the "virgin" forests sprang up.

[Juan Medén]

They're about as Neanderthal as Minnissota's political class -- the original cirque sans soleil.

[knarf]

Great, great Pappap Sven swears he laid that hammer on the anvil and it came up missing. My Great Papap took a whoopin' for it and went to his grave swearing he was innocent.

[cf_river_rat]

Intersting Story. This is off-topic, but would any of you mind looking at these pics of some lithics i found behind my house and let me know what you think they are? I think there was an encampment here on my place, but I don't have any idea how to date these things.

I just realized from looking through this gallery some of my best pieces aren't posted here yet.

Rocks Pictures

[WesternPacific]

Probably belonged to one of the ancient hard working Mexican pre-illegals that worked his ancestral land before we stole it 13,000 years ago!!!!

[lmailbvmbipfwedu]

Looks like a nice skipper, or at the very least a heaverite. Just heave it right over there.

[Brilliant]

You need to talk to an archeologist. I'd call over to the nearest university and find out who to talk to. You might even find someone who's interested in doing a little excavating on your property. Get an agreement with them that you'll own what they find.

[FLCowboy,]

I used to "grow" these in my garden in Huntington, CT back in the '70s. Every spring, I would have to mine the garden patch of rocks that surfaced during the freeze/thaw period.

[word_warrior_bob]

What am I missing here? How much will a museum pay me to exhibit my collection of "tools".