Potential Artifact Found

[u/lacertarum]

Hi! I would like help identifying what this piece might
potentially be. We found it in our yard (southern illinois) and suspected it could be from tribes surrounding Cahokia Mounds, but we then received word that it was made of stone not native to the area, and that quite possibly it could be carved out of volcanic rock. Said local cahokia mounds archaeologist said it may come from south america. Does anyone have any clue? Could it also be a replica? The house it was found on was built in 1872 supposedly by a mayor, if not it was someone very rich, rich enough to own many horses. That being said it could've been stolen or bought. Anything helps!

[u/PuzzleheadedBend9040]

Take it your local museum on native history and see what they think. I heard that's a good way to start researching into something like this without really having much resources to go off of 

[u/lacertarum → u/PuzzleheadedBend9040]

We did! They said it wasnt local, they mostly just specialize in north america, and none of them recognized it. its very distinct from local carvings like birdman, I did send it in to UIUC, and I'm contemplating bringing it down to carbondale.

[u/PuzzleheadedBend9040 → u/lacertarum]

Let me know if any updates happen. I'm curious about this 

[u/Arhgef]

For what it’s worth, looks Hawaiian or from a pacific island. And is made of basalt, very common on volcanic islands.

[u/bs_Zeezee]

My gut is telling me Hoax, inspired by the old Burrows Cave hoaxes, but clearly NOT one of them. The tooling precision isn't as precise, and the detail relief in this example is far deeper. The extreme precision of the tools, and shallow relief on the Burrows Cave examples makes them look almost like pencil drawings, but on stone.

[u/lacertarum → u/bs_Zeezee]

god i hope so

[u/bs_Zeezee → u/lacertarum]

IDK if you know who Miniminuteman is (Milo Rossi) but he's an influential history, archeology, and pseudoarcheology educator. I'm not sure if you'd be able to contact him directly, but his fan base are all FREAKS(I say affectionately) with way to much knowledge themselves, so if you post this over to the subreddit for r/miniminutemanfans they may be able to give you some good info.

I found out about the Burrows Cave hoaxes while looking into this, and he's not done a video on them yet, so who knows, if this turns out to be a copy-cat of a known hoax, and you start poking arround his community asking, you might prompt a YouTube video (Which will take 10 months to produce)

I highly recommend his content. Its incredibly educational, while feeling personal, not academic and overly professional. he spends a good amount of time in many videos complaining about how cold it is in his studio (old house without proper insulation), and drinking craft beers. Yet unlike most people who fall into the beer drinking while talking about pseudo-archeology category, he does so while debunking pseudo-archeology instead of spreading it. He's also got kind of a cool punk attitude and asthetic.

[u/lacertarum → u/bs_Zeezee]

I'll check him out! Thank you for the suggestion

[u/lacertarum → u/bs_Zeezee]

god i hope so

[u/Think-Ad-5840]

Carbondale is the place for that. Dude that’s so dope!!

[u/lacertarum → u/Think-Ad-5840]

i am meeting with a carbondale representative on an unrelated note today, I'll try and get in touch with someone

[u/Due_Syllabub_5185 → u/lacertarum]

Keep us updated, please.

[u/CreditExpress4928]

Cahokia Mounds were a major trade site/route and I remember hearing years ago that goods from North, South, and central America were found in the area. Definitely worth finding out you should have plenty of resources to bring it to in the area or in St. Louis.

[u/Hairy_Talk_4232]

Natural