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An
Unusual Dimple Stone from Florida
The purpose of this brief article is to describe a dimple stone that is unusual in that it appears to be truncated, or cut in half horizontally. Although quite rare among artifacts, dimple stones are well known among Florida collectors and were the subject of a recent publication by Thomas Rachels and Robert Knight (2004). In this excellent and thorough article, the authors point out that only about 200 examples have been documented, and of these, only one was excavated by a professional archaeologist. Although the range may be much larger, the principal area in which they occur is the Southeastern United States. They continue saying that the single most distinguishing feature of these objects is the dimple: “The dimple is perhaps the most important morphological feature of these artifacts and clearly the characteristic that separates these artifacts from nearly all other ground stone objects.” (p. 60). This is precisely what one sees when examining the records of ancient stone club heads, hammer stones, and the bola or boleadora stones found throughout the world. The latter objects, fastened to thongs or cords and hurled at live targets during hunting or war, were used in Asia, Europe and the Americas. They were sometimes perforated or encircled with grooves for attachment, but they were never dimpled.
The artifact in question was found by an amateur collector* in Suwannee Co. FL, about halfway between High Springs and Branford. It most closely resembles Rachels’ and Knight’s type 3 (one of the less common of the four types) which they describe as “…round type (depressed ovoid or spherical).” (p. 60). It is carefully and symmetrically made of quartzite with a flat bottom with the edges relieved, resulting in a very slightly convex bottom. It is so well balanced that when placed on a hard, flat surface, it spins freely without dragging the edges, and it also balances when set on the dimple. At 410 grams of weight, 57mm tall and 72.5 mm wide, it is much wider and heavier than the average stone reported by Rachels and Knight, which averaged 133 grams weight (only 7 examples of the 70 measured weighed more than 226 grams), and the widest stone they encountered was only 0.5 mm wider, at 73 mm. The cubic centimeter volume is 143 and the density is 2.86. The dimple is well developed at 18 mm wide with a depth of about 3 mm.
In conclusion, we see that this stone is among the larger examples of the known dimple stones, but especially unique in its truncated form. There exists the possibility that this example was reworked from a normal dimple stone that was broken, but there is no evidence to indicate this. Neither is there evidence to indicate that this is not the case, except the lack of other examples. The author is not aware of any similar example, nor can he offer any better conjecture as to the use than what has already been posed. Rachels and Knight presented many different theories and suggestions, carefully considering and rejecting each in turn when it would not pass the test of logic. They concluded that most likely these artifacts were “…used as some type of club head designed for purposes other than war or hunting, some type of symbolic object …. or for a purpose as yet undetermined.” Hopefully some day we will understand what that symbol or purpose may be.
*Although the finder did not wish to be known, we appreciate his generosity in opening his collection to make this artifact available for study.
Reference Cited
Rachels, Thomas, and Robert L. Knight. “Dimple Stones – A Unique and Early Ground Stone Artifact Type from the Southeast.” The Amateur Archaeologist, Fall 2004 pp. 57-75, Issue editor: Robert L. Knight, PhD.
