Pottery Decoration Tool

One day in early October the weather was particularly fine so I headed out on the lake to look around.  I pulled into a site that I had not visited for several years to examine the shoreline.  Just above the water’s edge I found this artifact laying on the surface of the ground.  I joyously bellowed out a string of choice swear words and excitedly bent over to pick up the piece.  I immediately knew what it was (only because I had seen pictures of similar items in the literature) but I had never seen the actual artifacts.

The small, thin stone object appears to have been made out of a softer rock material possibly steatite.  Small pieces of stone have been removed along one side of the artifact to produce a notched edge.  However, this “serrated” edge is not sharp and the notches are squared up producing a tool that is dull and not suitable for cutting.  Instead, the artifact is likely to have been designed for making imprints as, when impressed into a soft material, it creates a decoration known as a dentate stamp.  The recovery of pottery decoration tools from an archaeological site is not a common event.