What is This Mysterious Stone Age Object?

1. anon
   December 2nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm

   First guess... cabinet handle.

   Second guess... tool handle ornament.

   Third guess... cutting tool. Run a thread through the hole and roll the blade back and forth.

2. jambi
   December 2nd, 2008 at 3:31 pm

   A shield

3. Leokins
   December 2nd, 2008 at 3:37 pm

   a gigantic bead

4. K Mann
   December 2nd, 2008 at 3:45 pm

   Knobs for a pot lid

5. Alex
   December 2nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm

   Cabinet handle? Pot lid knob? Think stone age, guys ... like the Flintstones, only real.

6. fantomas
   December 2nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm

   looks like a spinning whorl -- here are some links:

   http://www.butser.org.uk/iaftex_hcc.html

   (snip) "The archaeological record contains a wide variety of "disks", with central holes, and which are of the form necessary to give a "drop spindle" when a shaft is inserted through that hole. The drop spindle is known from times when no record of the spinning wheel exists and is presumed to be the earliest device for producing a continuous thread."

   the above link contains illustrations of similar objects to the one found in the russian dig.

   here is a link to a pic showing how the whorl is placed on a spindle:

   http://lh6.ggpht.com/_sA0GMJLjzis/R59FNcXJkCI/AAAAAAAACm8/o8Wd_YesKq4/ Soapstone+Spindles+a.JPG

   this link is to an illustration of a modern woman from tibet using (an ornate) drop spindle:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tibetan_spinning_wool.jpg

   and finally, here is a mayan using a drop spindle for spinning cotton -- note the truncated cone whorl at the base of the spindle -- (the upper-right image):

   http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/cmspnwev.gif

7. Andrea Schwartz
   December 2nd, 2008 at 4:07 pm

   What a silly question. It is obviously a drawer pull!

8. Theresa
   December 2nd, 2008 at 4:10 pm

   It's a drop spindle whorl.

9. Blaise Pascal
   December 2nd, 2008 at 4:19 pm

   I agree with Theresa... drop spindle whorl. Especially if the hole is tapered.

10. AJ
    December 2nd, 2008 at 4:39 pm

    It's a stick stand, for when you're tired of carrying your stick.

11. Adrian X
    December 2nd, 2008 at 4:52 pm

    It's an earring.

12. Jake G
    December 2nd, 2008 at 5:08 pm

    to me it looks an awful lot like the stone weights used with digging sticks to harvest tubers used by the Khoisan language group of ancient Africa. it's from the microlithic tool set the food collectors carried with them, and they looks almost exactly like the mysterious object in question.

13. Paul
    December 2nd, 2008 at 5:28 pm

    fake nipple?

14. kid_icarus
    December 2nd, 2008 at 5:39 pm

    hmmm i am going to say it looks like a cigarette extinguisher....or a knob......but my stone-age idea was it is a piece of a fire-starter. a stick would fit through the hole and a rope of some kind would be wrapped around the stick and this doohickey. when you push down on the doodad the stick rotates quickly and winds itself back up allowing you to push it down again. causing the stick to spin again thus increasing friction between the stick and another piece of wood. and is easier to do than spinning the stick with your hands.........did that make sense?

15. Ralph B
    December 2nd, 2008 at 5:48 pm

    Technically, a cone with the point lopped off of it is termed a 'frustum'. This knowledge stems only from a project I had to about geometric three-dimensional objects from Honors Geometry in approximately 1995. I could be wrong.

16. marajanecreations
    December 2nd, 2008 at 5:58 pm

    I'm going to agree that it's a drop spindle whorl.

17. timageous
    December 2nd, 2008 at 6:19 pm

    I'm with spindle whorl. I have seen quite a few of these from buried contexts in mexico and the US southwest and they generally have similar morphology. Why wouldn't they be weaving fabric? They were certainly sewing leather.

18. lnothin7
    December 2nd, 2008 at 6:22 pm

    incense holder

19. JivesTheButler
    December 2nd, 2008 at 6:41 pm

    I would mount a stick in the hole and use it to grind the fibers out of tough plants to make threads.

    But maybe I am being impractical.

20. Brad Smith
    December 2nd, 2008 at 6:50 pm

    It is a button! Try it on for size lol.

21. Lady C
    December 2nd, 2008 at 6:57 pm

    Because no one's said it yet, "It's an instrument of torture."

    The article doesn't give any scale for the object, making it difficult to determine what it might have been.

22. SuperJdynamite
    December 2nd, 2008 at 7:34 pm

    "'The function of this decorated object remains a puzzle,' they say."

    Maybe it's a (wait for it) decorative object?

23. DOJ
    December 2nd, 2008 at 7:36 pm

    It's giant money, ala Yap

24. Ali S.
    December 2nd, 2008 at 7:40 pm

    I'm thinking if you put a stick through it and grains in the bottom you could easily use this like a grain crushing device to make some sort of bread. Stick this on top of a slightly bowled shape rock for a base and drop grain into it. Many primitive societies that still exist around the World have similar looking devices to crush grain, nuts, or whatever other food source to make a flat bread like food.

25. Tom
    December 2nd, 2008 at 8:43 pm

    It looks like a hand powered millstone to me. You would push a stick through the hole, and put some grain in a groove, and roll it over it.

    Kind of obvious, actually.

26. liphttam1
    December 2nd, 2008 at 9:41 pm

    I with Ali S. all the way. I was going with stick through it. But that realy wont explain the decerations, right?

27. Linda
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:02 pm

    Most likely a drop spindle whorl. Even today, most whorls are highly decorated, as described. It's just missing the stick. The article doesn't note the size, though.

28. George
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:35 pm

    From the shape, I think it's designed for expanding and opening the chakras.

29. Miss K
    December 3rd, 2008 at 12:08 am

    Looks like something used for spinning or weaving textiles

30. Verity
    December 3rd, 2008 at 12:12 am

    It's a nipple decoration.

31. The Mutt
    December 3rd, 2008 at 12:37 am

    What's a drop spindle whorl?

    It looks like a drawer pull or a door knob. Did they have drawers and doors back then?

32. Fred Head
    December 3rd, 2008 at 12:57 am

    Puny hu-mans. You're knob-centric views expose your ignorance. To those of us you call "aliens", this device is self-explanatory. The object in the photo is one piece of a two part mechanism. The item above is obviously a "Perspirus Adjustment Knob". It is used to adjust the timing mechanism on the famous "Blamburg Machine". This machine is used to dynamically maintain the differentiation fields that separate all 256 dimensions of existence. Too bad they only found this adjustment knob. If they had discovered the accompanying "Blamburg Machine", it would have altered human history forever. Oh well. Live long, and phosphor - puny hu-mans.

33. Alana
    December 3rd, 2008 at 2:12 am

    Drop spindle, or a really big button.

34. K!P
    December 3rd, 2008 at 5:14 am

    candel holder

35. Padraig
    December 3rd, 2008 at 6:10 am

    @Lady C:

    > The article doesn’t give any scale for
    >the object, making it difficult to determine
    > what it might have been.

    The article mentions the larger of the objects to be 17 cm (6.7") in diameter.

36. monoclemonkey
    December 3rd, 2008 at 8:29 am

    drawer pull, whorl ...don't be silly. It is obviously the volume knob from an early Sony receiver.

37. PK
    December 3rd, 2008 at 9:21 am

    it's a hat for a unicorn! where's robocop at...

38. Halil
    December 3rd, 2008 at 10:24 am

    Some kind of a pedestal.

39. Scooter
    December 3rd, 2008 at 11:28 am

    If the hole in the middle were bigger i'd say it's a Mace head. but drop spindle makes scene to me.

40. Dustin
    December 3rd, 2008 at 10:13 pm

    I like the ideas of many of you out there, but you have to keep the material in mind. On Mohs scale ivory has a hardness of 2.5. That's about the same as fingernails, amber, and silver. Chert/flint is much more common and it has a hardness of ~7.

    Given the size my best guess is that it is the base of some art/religious piece. Of course that's always the line used when archaeologists don't know what something is.

41. Melvin
    December 4th, 2008 at 12:29 am

    I'm always amazed by the assumption that prehistoric people didn't decorate their tools. It's seems universal that craft and tradesmen decorate and personalize their tools whether we're talking about Studley's tool box or those Japanese/Pakistani decorated trucks.

42. PancakeMan
    December 5th, 2008 at 1:37 am

    Weird, when I first tried to comment the other day the comments were down.

    Anywho, I vote for millstone as well. They would use this in conjunction with another stone, possibly with grooves in it, and the hole is for a stick to use as a receptacle for whatever weights were needed.

    Still doesn't explain all the decorating, but whatever.

43. rubken
    December 5th, 2008 at 9:48 am

    I favour the pedestal idea. The hole being for a fixing of some kind to support whatever went on top.

44. Starcher
    December 7th, 2008 at 5:40 am

    It looks like a handle to a door. The hole is for the screw. I have a few of those in my apartment.

45. Pia M.
    March 17th, 2009 at 10:47 pm

    I honestly don't think ivory would be hard enough to withstand constant grinding. Most cultures would rather use stone for milling.

    The drop spindle whorl theory gets the most points. Religious artifact would be next.

    Although, if you do put a cord pull through the hole, it might be the decorative cover of some kind of urn that possible stored grain or oil. The size mentioned makes sense.

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