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Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Native American Grinding Stone - Indiana County


More finds from Indiana County. This is by far the largest Native American Grinding Stone I have ever run across.
As you can see - they couldn't have picked a better boulder. It even has a small step like feature - covered up now by forest debris.
That's Butch Laney who built and runs http://www.naeskahonitown.com/inschool.html out in Black Lick. The bowl measures about 3 feet across and goes down about 2 feet at its deepest point.
Countless generations of Native American woman spent hours on their hands and knees grinding acorns and chestnuts in this bowl - trying their best to feed their families and stay one step ahead of starvation. They would make a type of breadlike pattie out of the nutmeal. But the main drawback of eatting to many acorns - Tannin builds up in your system and most Natives died while in their 40's.
Posted by Lisa Cacicia at 2:53 AM
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2 comments:

Fancy Dirt said...

Great rock! The hole is so large, I think this could also be a hole where food was boiled by adding hot rocks that would be heated and reheated on a fire. The posture of the person in the picture shows how uncomfortable it would be to use this hole just for grinding.

May 16, 2014 at 1:29 PM
Jason said...

My family came over in the 1630s, so that makes me a definite "native american". As for being a Pennsylvanian indian, that I am not. I too love finding things like this out in the woods. There's a field near by my grandparents farm that turns up arrow heads every time they till the ground.

June 9, 2014 at 4:00 PM

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