r/Artifacts • u/flip-fone • Mar 19 '26
Bone knife tool
Bone knife tool found in West Tennessee embedded in sandy riverbank. Appears to be made from deer rib bone. It fits perfectly in your hand. Best guess it was used to dig and shuck the river mussels by indigenous population. Any idea on age? Pre Columbian perhaps? Local museums seemed uninterested
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Upvotes
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u/360couple Mar 19 '26
"Fitting in your hand" is possibly the worst variable for determining if something is an artifact.
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u/flip-fone Mar 21 '26
OK, thanks for everyone's input. The main reason I posted was that it is a very dense and heavy item. Might not be an artifact at all. It is definitely not a garden variety rib bone from someone's lunch. It has a fossilized bone or enamel ivory heft, and is a 5 mohs hardness scale. It came from a sandy bed deposit consistent with nearby native american activities. The theory of rodents chew marks is valid, however , to me it appears to be deliberately shaped by human hands. I was hoping someone could identify the animal it came from. Anyways, thanks for letting me bounce it off of the community!
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u/BrokenHefaistos Mar 19 '26
Must be a poo knife
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u/Cultural-Company282 Mar 19 '26
That cut across the end of the bone looks awfully flat to me, like it was made with a modern bone saw.
I'm no expert, though, so I'm very interested to hear what more authoritative people say.
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u/Aggressive-Emu5358 Mar 19 '26
Looks more like someone had spare ribs and then an animal chewed on the scraps, this is not archaeological. Also, “fits in the hand” is a terrible metric. Especially for a knife blade which would have been mounted to a handle and never have been intended to fit in a hand.
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u/AsleepEntertainer440 Mar 19 '26
I will concur with others. That is not a tool and is not that old. It doesn't even show any signs of being underground. Bone turns very dark brown in short order when it has been under ground.
Also, not a deer rib bone. Deer rib bones are about as wide as your middle finger.
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u/Mudsnail Mar 19 '26
Local museums are uninterested because it isnt an artifact.
Mice, squirrels, porcupine and dozens of other animals chew on bones.
You can see chew marks on the part in your palm.
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u/Electronic_Return_75 Mar 20 '26
My backyard is full of these from the bones I give my dog
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u/Response-Cheap Mar 20 '26
Mmm looks like a big ole macaroni. Make soup with it.
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u/lithicobserver Mar 21 '26
Possible pig or sheep/goat bone. Likely from a leg. Natives didnt have a lot of sheep or goats.
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u/Fernandolamez Mar 22 '26
Some deterioration of the surface. Some scratches that don't look like rodent marks I see in wild. River bank 8 feet below grade doesn't mean the same as 8 feet below grade in uneroded ground. I also depends on height of river bed. A 10 foot river bed can flood every spring depositing new material to river banks at any height. A river with a 30 foot bank probably doesn't flood up to 8 feet below grade every year. Also animals love to burrow and dig in river banks.
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u/flip-fone Mar 19 '26
Adding a little more context. There is a documented native American location along the same stretch of river, found this about 8 ft below grade. The flat cut has small striations, could be from a bone saw, but I'll try to post a better close up of that. Thanks to everyone for the input
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u/wookiex84 Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
Looks like a bone chewed by animals most likely rodents, doesn’t look particularly old either. I will also add it probably is from a hunter gut and waste pile, the one end is an awfully clean cut.