Dave's Page

Mystery Item

Well...

Considering we never received an official answer from any of the museums we sent the rock's photo shoot to, I guess we'll never know for absolute sure what it is or where it came from. This mystery item however, has generated more interest than any other we have posted. You all have some excellent answers so feel free to keep guessing. As long as you keep sending them in, we'll keep reading them.

In the meantime, the search is on for a brand new Mystery Item to unfold, so keep an eye out for it.

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What Is It??

You guys ROCK... No pun intended. We have received more responses about this Mystery Item than any other... And may I say, your answers fascinate us!

Special thanks to you all for your suggestions and help, for the website links and using your connections. Currently, we have submitted the photos to The Archaeological Society of NJ (thanks Darryl!), the State Museum of Pennsylvania, The Forks of Delaware Chapter 14 The Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology and local museums and are still awaiting answers. In the meantime, I thought it might be fun to share some of the guesses sent in. Granted, I had to paraphrase:

An anchor used for fishing nets. A bunch of these would be tied on a large net that would lay from side to side on a creek bad and would anchor their nets down so the currents couldn’t carry them away. Ford Edsel shock absorber mount, new condition The most unusual coprolite ever seen Graphite made by Mohicans Tool used by Mound builders The proto type Ginsu blade Ax head from 14th Century Clovis axe head made by Solutreans Apache tool Axe head used for skinning Stone hatchet head Axe head from the Archaic Period The predecessor to the pre-ban version of the assault hatchet made by Marquart Indians on the banks of Umlau River Native American tool to chop meat and bone War club Neolithic cave man Made by Judge Judy for her husband in Oct. 1392	Meteorite Arizona Love Stone Tomahawk The original Bronson rock Axe or cleaver blade by Homo Erectus between 1.5 million to 150,000 years ago Flint war club Modern reproduction axe head sold at a flea market Made by kids in the back of Sarco Hatchet head made by Sioux Made by one of our customers when he was 12 on the shore of Lake Geneva back in 1957 and now he wants it back Possibly just a weird natural occurrence Neolithic axe head from either Europe or Papua New Guinea 2,500 years old from Wisconsin Made by Plains Indians Made by mountain men Cholly made it for his High School Thanksgiving play 1700's Mohican axe head State of the art Special Forces axe head Dave made it in Boy Scouts
We have received many more guess than what you see here, and all of your responses were quite impressive (we particularly appreciated the breakdown diagram from "Sam" - nice job!) We were very lucky that one of you (thanks Jon!) had special connections with a curator from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, who indeed thought it was an axe, although a rough one, made by Indians. "But in terms of dating it, the problem is that axe forms are difficult because they didn't change much over thousands of years because the basic form was so successful that there wasn't a lot of diddle with in terms of improvements. If I had to say, it's 5000 to 7000 years old."
To answer the most popular question asked: We don't know exactly where it came from. The rock belongs to resident of Pennsylvania, who received it from someone else who lives in Pennsylvania, who apparently doesn't know where it originated from.... Hope that helps... Yeah, right. None the less, keep the guesses coming!! We'll figure it out sooner or later.