Ancient Stone Tool: How was it used? 

Thank you!

Indeed. And it created a very interesting dynamic between the river societies where agriculture created great food surplus and the mountain zones where building resources (wood and stone) were more common but less could be grown. It would seem that this would result in a direct exchange of food for stone, but it isn't that simple because food spoils and so is very difficult to cart over long distances.

Came here to say that.

Like a Swiss Army Knife of the past!

@wren6311 - Meat tenderizer! Parchment weight! Candle holder! Table leg leveler!

I suspect that is how they began the hole, by pecking the surface in a specific place (and missing sometimes to make the scatter away from the hole). The majority of the marks are right around the edge and if you start a dent by using a small rock to peck away, you can then set the drill shaft in it and it will eventually wear that dent deeper and smoother. Thanks for watching and commenting!

Nere the hole there's ,writing like a J at 5:13, is that the owner's name or museum entry number.😮

Further to this, can we know if there were specific trade routes for such stones? They're quite heavy (citation needed) so bringing them in in bulk would be a lot of effort, and for more than a few you'd presumably need pack animals or carts. Would they have been particularly expensive?

it's on a river system so boats moved stuff, and extensive trade links even brought stone from thousands of miles away, such a lapis lazuli from Badashkhan in north east Afghanistan, via camel trains when the routes were open through peace and thriving economies.

The answer is yes. You can use trace mineral analysis tests, but you'd need to know the origin first. As the number of possibke source locations are analysed, a 'library' of results is built up that can then be referred too. This would be very similar to the methodology used to identify blood diamonds. I hope that helps.

You can analyze the composition of a rock, but it means thin-slicing it and thereby damaging it. It's also expensive and so for both of these reasons we tend not to do it. We do use X-ray florescence on some things to find the composition at the surface and in some cases we will take a small sample of something for mass spectrometer analysis. The composition of a stone or metal can help to determine its source, but you have to also have analysis of materials from that source to compare it to and we don't always know the mines that were active in the time period. So, there are a lot of pitfalls to the technique, and only in a few cases is it worth pursuing. Drill caps like this are not all that common here but I suspect they were often overlooked in the excavations 100 years ago. Even hammer stones were not often collected by Woolley and they are more common. When I worked in Egypt (on the Giza plateau) I found a number of these drill caps and they had not been recognized before. We wondered why they would be here and finally decided they were probably used on fire starting drills, since we know they burned incense in ceremonies there.

Trade routes are particularly interesting to me as I like to study the economic aspects of the ancient world. Stones are heavy, but were an important resource so I suspect they brought them in as often as they could. This stone is relatively small but about 500 grams itself, so in bulk they would be very heavy -- and some much larger stones were used as door sockets and as carved decoration. But they were carried most of the way by river and you can load a lot onto a boat (plus you might need heavy material as ballast at the bottom of your boat anyway). We also know of overland trade routes, such as the Old Assyrian route from Assur to Kanesh and beyond, running 1000km or more. Here, they loaded donkeys each with 90kg of tin and textiles and took as many as 100 of those donkeys in caravan over the route. I recommend watching In the Mists of Time video about it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BU0XRfLYPnU.html : I hope to do a reaction to that video soon to highlight it and add what I know about that trade route.

We do sometimes find drill bits, though in this trench we haven't yet. Bits are usually not as broad as arrowheads, at least the ones we find at most sites in the Ancient Near East. We did find various fragments of copper/bronze in Squares 6 & 7 that might once have been part of drilling tools, but nothing yet that's a clear bit in those trenches. I often wonder how they made sure the bit stayed on the drill shaft. Presumably wedged into the shaft and sealed with bitumen and perhaps sinew tied around it. How did you make sure your bit didn't fall off while it was rotating?

@@artifactuallyspeaking thank you for answering my question! And what I did was use a much thicker shaft than I typically used for fire making and hollowed out the tip and then carved channels along the side so it could grasp onto the drill bit kinda like modern drills hold their bits and I’d secure it with some cordage. However that was done since the shaft was the hardest part to make and I wanted to be able to replace the bit depending on what I wanted to drill. That being said I don’t want to come across like an expert on this since I basically only used it as a drill to see if I could so it was mostly small wood pieces or starting holes for new top stones. I did have plans to use it to make a pump drill but never found the right stone to use as a weight. I think if they were able to easily make multiple shafts it’d make sense if they had a more permanent way to secure their drill bits as keeping them completely stable in the shaft was difficult even with the method I described and required a bit of fidgeting and searching for the right drill bit every time I wanted to use it. My next question is what kinds of rocks you’ve found in the area as I had access/found pieces of quartz which is what I used for stone and making top rocks. I’d also just be most interested in methods they may have used for making the shafts as hollowing out the tip was the hardest part for me. But again I’d like to reiterate I’m not an expert and my use of these tools was much more just testing my own abilities so much closer to a hobbiest than the authentic expertise. Also not to nerd out but the cordage they may have used both to affix the drill bit and for the bow interests me, you mentioned sinew which I haven’t worked with but having made tons of cordage from plant material I wonder if that was also an option. Having something like yucca or Hau would both make for great cordage as I still have some I’ve made that has stayed in pretty good condition for about 5 years. Sorry for nerding out and getting rambly this subject just sparks my curiosity as I find “primitive” tools and artistry really fascinating and bow drilling rarely comes up in my daily life now days.

I think one of the best ways to find out how ancient people did things, in many cases at least, is to try to do it ourselves and your experiments with this sound fascinating. I've seen videos of people using bow drills to light fires, but haven't seen people actually trying to drill things with them. I suspected it would be difficult to keep the drill bit stable, and the ancients did use various fibers to make rope/twine, I just wasn't sure how strong it would be. I bet they learned to make it quite strong as it sounds like you were able to do that. There are pretty much no natural stones in southern Mesopotamia but we do find quite a few brought in, particularly small ones used to make beads and tools. We do find quartz pieces and often think they were raw material for beads, but maybe they were raw material for drill bits. I'm glad you're nerding out on this as I find it fascinating too.

@@artifactuallyspeaking there actually a video that kinda demonstrates what I’m talking about ie using it to drill in “primitive technology: cord drill and pump drill” although he uses it for wood, it’s kinda made me want to reassemble my old kit and try this with stone. I also really like and agree with the notion that the best way to figure out how ancient peoples may have done something is to try it ourselves, humans have always been very clever and if there was an easier way to do things with the resources available it’s a pretty safe bet that that’s what they did. Thank you again for indulging my nerding out and for sharing your knowledge with us. It’s really awesome hearing about these things from someone who’s on the ground at these sites and passionate.

They typically used stone bits and grinding powder (emery or quartzite) to aid the drilling process. There are many excellent videos of people reproducing ancient drilling techniques, cutting and drilling stone without iron or steel, on RU-vid!

I think it depends on where you put the pressure. You have to push down directly over the divot, but not necessarily in the center of the stone, so I think it would still work.

@@artifactuallyspeaking One hypothesis I would suggest testing would be to put the divot nearer the heal of the hand, longer side toward fingers, conceivably (to me) optimum pressure with the divot to the rear, and a bit more control (less important???) with the long side forward. There would be a deal of subjectivity, so any conclusions would be provisional?

Yes, stone tools were common throughout the Bronze Age! Even though there was new technology to make metal tools, stones were still around and in some ways easier to use, so they continued to use both ground stone and chipped stone technology.

@@artifactuallyspeaking In a way we still do. The silicon chip allowing me to see this video is essentially, hi tech stone.

Yes, drill caps like this can be used to help with a fire-starting drill and may have been used that way even here in Mesopotamia. I found several on the Giza plateau where I'm sure they were not manufacturing, but they probably were lighting fires for ritual in the cemetery, so there I think they were fire drill caps.

We don't take any artifacts away from Iraq. They go to the Iraq National Museum. We study them in the field and take data, not objects. The rivers have moved, but in the time of the Sumerians there were many branches and canals with the head of the Gulf much farther north than it is today.

good give them to shea government; their goods are in COM city in Iran, they can sell those artifact and buy weapons for your country! @@artifactuallyspeaking

I am from Iraq and this scientist did more to preserve the Iraqi heritage than you will ever do, also your other comments indicate that you're a terrorist so it's ironic that you say that while your people bombed historic cities to the ground.

By the way this person is definitely not Iraqi I can tell by the way he describes the majority of the Iraqi people and the Arab channels he follows.

@@Stewie-Griffin People who have a picture of a cat in their profile should hunt mice, not spy on people!

Tunnel vision?