Tennessee door stop

[baseball5]

Hi, I'm a new member here (been lurking for some time) and was wondering what yall think about this hard stone axe. A friend gave this to me and said his parents used it as a door stop for as long as he can remember (he is in his 70's). It's some kind of 3/4 groved axe, I'm definitaley no expert but I've never seen one quite like this one. The dimensions seem different than all the axes I've seen on here or in person. It's about 6" long but only about 2" wide. The tip is highly polished as well as the top. Lots of wear on the back (maybe from being used as a door stop). I'm not sure what kind of material it is but it seems kind of pourous and since there are NO rocks in this area of Tennessee it had to come from somewhere else. My question is, is it an artifact or a really good reproduction? Thanks in advance!! p.s. love the site!!

[Rockit Man]

wish I knew enough to help. welcome from Round Rock texas.

[gpblood]

From what I can see it looks authentic ,
maybe made from basalt .
Thanks for letting us see it .
Where in Tenn. do you live maybe we
could get together for some rock hunting .
GregBlood

[baseball5]

Thanks for the input guys! GP, I'm in NW Tennessee, but have some places in Middle Tennessee that I have hunted before. I would be game to do some hunting if we could get together. I will try to post some finds from the farm where I spent the summers with my Grandparents, its less than a mile from the Hugh Link farm.... Unfortuntley the family sold the farm before I really started hunting. Most finds were just accidental finds, my Grandfather was more concerned with hauling hay and working cattle than he was with picking up rocks.

[Steve Valentine]

From what I can see in your pictures it looks like a good pecked and ground hardstone Axe to me. Not all of them were polished smooth as glass over the entire surface and most will still show the peck marks on them, especially within the groove area. Does it seem really heavy for it's size? It could be Diorite if it is. If not it may just be a type of dark colored Granite. Looks like a keeper to me.

Also, the story of it being used as a doorstop is pretty common with older folks that had these. Like your grandfather, lots of the old farmers didn't really see how much value in items like this when they found them and they would just stick them up in a barn or use them as a doorstop like this. I remember a story on one of sites a few years back of a guy that went into an old store out in the middle of nowhere and they had a huge 3/4 Grooved Axe that they were using to hold open the door of the store. I can't recall if he actually got it from them or if he just told the story of it.

[ghost recon]

Looks good to me as well. I found one of similar style and material in WV.

[StevefromMissouri]

Really cool axe!

I remember as a kid my great aunt used a Nebo 3/4 grooved axe as a door stopper. My parents inherited it when she passed away about 15 years ago. It was found up near Fort Osage on their family farm in the 30's or 40's. The first three pics are of that axe. The last two pics are one that was also found on that farm, but with a small corner of the butt end repaired by Don Lutjen in the 80's.

[joshuaream]

I still use tools at paper weights on my desk, but nothing as a door stop...

It's probably a local piece, axes and celts would have been used by most groups from the Archaic through historic times. It could also be imported from another area of the US, I've seen a lot of thin long 3/4 axes like that from the Southwest. Tourists started going to that area in significant numbers in the early 1900's when the railroad to the Grand Canyon made it cheap and easy.

[baseball5]

Thanks again for looking / commenting. I was talking to my friend that gave this to me this morning and he was telling me some stories that his grandmother had told him. She said she rembered when she was a kid a group of indians came to the farm and asked her father if they could bury a relative there with their family. Who knows if it is true or not but it's a neat story. The farm in question is now a big hole, the state used the dirt to build a levee through the river bottom for a road back in the '50s. I bet they dug up a lot of artifacts that are now covered in asphalt..