Tally marks or manufacturing marks?

[Cannonman17]

Just a thought I wanted to throw out there. I live in an area where we find no ground slate artifacts at all so I know nothing about them. What I'm about to describe might already be out there as a theory, I don't know and I will admit I haven't done my homework so please don't hang me. What got me going on this was a recent trade in which I recieved a ground slate artifact in (today in fact and THANK YOU Gibby!)the mail. It has a single drill hole and another along a break at the edge. A rough picture of this artifact is in the middle of my diagram below. Sorry about my poor drawing skills. It was pointed out to me that the pendant had several "tally marks". Being the first time I've ever owned a slate artifact like this I examined it very close. First thing I noticed was that the tally marks were not consistent. Some were shallow, some were deep, and some had been abraded over and were just BARELY visible. That last bit is what really got me wondering. If they were making these marks intentionally to keep track of something why would they abrade over them?

Now I like to do a lot of experimental archaeology, I find I can learn an awful lot by knapping points and then using them for a variety of tasks, likewise I've actually made a small axe by the peck and grind method- and last but not least I've carved some stone (catlanite and soapstone). I've alwasy used only traditional things, for knapping only antler and rock, for the axe, just another hard stone and a hunk of sandstone, and for the carving I have done some pieces from start to finish using only traditional tools like flakes and sandstone (though now a days I use metal tools to speed it up). What I learned while carving stone was that simple abrading an item into form takes way WAY too long. Within hours I was looking for a way to speed up the process without cheating and I found one. I found out that I could use a flake or better yet the tip to a stone knife to make grooves into the surface of the stone and fairly close intervals and once they were deep enough I could apply pressure to the ridges left and snap them off, this was way WAY faster than just abrading a piece. I also found that in some awkward humps a carefully planned cut or score could result in being able to snap off a large piece of unwanted material.

So.. here's my terrible diagram showing how the manufacturing of a slate object could result in some left over marks or tally marks. Now I'm NOT saying that all tally marks are manufacturing marks, just that it may be the case sometimes with some objects. What do you all think?

1) Shows the flat side of our hypothetical slate piece and the red dotted line represent score lines cut into the surface so that the out side edge could be snapped off.
2) Roughing out the shape by undercutting a large hump and then exerting pressure on it from the top (black arrow) to snap it off.
3) more undercutting and snapping off the large humps.
4) getting closer to the final stage making a bunch of scores close together and then snapping off the resulting ridges would remove a lot of material fairly quickly. The ridges would not however snap off all at the same level. Some would snap off high, some at the desired plain and perhaps some too low. Gringing would result in erasing some of these marks and perhaps leaving a few to.
5) more scorring and snapping. Note some of the score lines left in the surface.
6) rough form is done and ready to be smoothed out the rest fo the way by simply abrading and/or polishing. This act would erase most of the score marks in any given artifact depending on how much it was abraded/polished.

Doesn't this seem like a reasonable explanation for the random placement of these tally marks on a lot of objects??

Sorry for rambling on like an idiot, just excited to have my first slate artifacts and I find them to be intensly interesting.

[Aboman]

Having collected tallied ornaments for over 30 years, I can say that of the hundreds that I've handled, all had the tallies added after the final manufacturing polishing step. Many broken (or "ceremonially killed") ornaments had tallies added to the remaining pieces before they obtained use polish. Most tallies were made very deliberately and were meant to be seen as decoration IMO.
Since slate cleaves off in planes, it would be very difficult to snap off material across the planes. Your theory is interesting but I think based on more examples, you'll see that they were made using grinding with the tallies added last (perhaps over the useful life of the ornament). JMO.

[Cannonman17]

Interesting. Well I can say with 100% confidence that some of the tally marks on this piece were abraded over without any doubt at all. I would have to also say that because slate breaks in layers wouldn't make the score and snap idea any less useful, in fact it might have been easier to break the ridges off on a consistent plain that way (you wouldn't really be going against the grain but working with it, scoring against and breaking it off with). Now, like I said I'm no expert and I was just thinking- you're probably right. I will see if I can take some pictures of this piece that show the grinding that was done over the top of them.

[Gibby]

I think since it was a partially salvaged piece the tallies may infact be ground over. I think Abo was talking manufacturing wise. I have wondered the same thing about that same piece.

Maybe they put in the tallies after it was finished, then it broke, then they may have polished it down a bit more. But, I really have no clue.

[Cannonman17]

Gibby, why do you think it was slavaged? The break doesn't appear to have any grinding over on it at all. (Although I will go look more closely at it when I go downstairs now again)

[DesertWalker]

Interesting subject. Have a photo?

[Cannonman17]

I'll take some tomorrow. Have it in hand now but no camera.

[Cannonman17]

Okay, here they are. Rather hard to get decent pictures. Some of the grounded out tally marks I couldn't even get to show up in the pics but are plainly visible when held on an angle to the light by the naked eye. First pic is of some of the plainly visible "tally" marks that show the rounded shoulders. If they had been the last thing placed on this piece I would expect the edge where the flat surface and valley meet to be much sharper, not rounded off with striations running over it. Second pic is of the artifact from a ways away just to show what we are dealing with. Notice the long curve mark? That's the remains of a score cut that was undoubtedly part of the forming process and just went a bit too deep. Last pic didn't really turn out because to the left of the two marks that you can see are actually two more than have been almost completely erased by abrasion, if you hold the piece on an angle to the light you can just make out the faint lines but in spite of taking about ten pictures trying to capture that aspect I failed.

[Steve Valentine]

Is there any grinding at all on the broken area? It may even be very light. It looks to me like that has been a Keyhole Pendant that was broken through the original hole and then a new hole was drilled and it was really common for them to add Tally Marks on salvaged pieces. It may have something along the lines of trying to give the piece a "new life" by adding new features.

[DesertWalker]

Looks to have been made with the tally marks added, then used.