An Unusual Tool

While out walking the other day with one of the LSU Arthopod Museum's staff the tool shown below was found amongst a scatter of mano fragments.  Downstream of several room shaped crop marks, the presence of flaking and grinding stone tool fragments suggests we were close to a former habitation site.

The oddly shaped piece measuring 3.3 x 6.5 cm was constructed out of a fine grained local red rhyolite common to the area.  Four long primary flakes running the length were removed from one side to create the tool from a single larger flake.  Several very small secondary flakes were removed from the inner curved surface creating a partially serrated cutting edge.  The shape and curvature of the tool suggests right handed usage and when held the thumb fits comfortably in the basal depression at the base while the index finger comfortable wraps around a groove on the backside.

Tentatively identified as either a burin or awl, this unusually shaped tool would be a handy addition to any early tool kit and would work well in either punching holes in leather or cutting and scraping wood or bone shafts.

An oddly shaped rhyolite awl or burin

The back of the tool showing natural finger groove

Addendum:

The tool fits neatly into the right hand.

Monsoon Green

Although only receiving about 3" of rain in July, the grasslands are greening up nicely at the Painted Pony Resort.  The change in the landscape is dramatic with knee high green native grasses going to seed and the poppies blooming in the riverbed.  Monsoon green as a color is familiar to most visitors since they are surrounded by green plants at home.  But in the open desert shades of brown and red are predominant many times of the year.  The color change occurs with the winter rains and the summer monsoon rains.  The landscape changes dramatically shifting from the reds and browns to bright green as new grasses emerge and perennials green up, actively photosynthesizing in preparation for flowering and seed production.

This dramatic change can be startling, but has this dramatic seasonal change always affected residents in the high desert of southwestern New Mexico and is there any evidence to support this notion?  Personal observations of the landscape suggests former inhabitants also appreciated monsoon green.  From the use of green turquoise for jewelry to the production of manos (not shown) and metates from green rocks (see below), green was and continues to be a color of renewal in the desert.

Grasslands at the Painted Pony Resort

Granite peak from the San Simon riverbed

Portal Peak from the San Simon riverbed

green stone metate