One of the more unusual things I have found. Perhaps a medicine man's mortar and pestle or a child's game?
That is really cool. Where did you find it? How would he use the "marble" to grind? But then again, I would think stone-age people traveled pretty light and that looks fairly heavy for a toy. Very interesting. Anybody around you that you could ask about it's function?
Probably used for the more mundane affairs of grinding grain and staying fed.
Although most of the Mortar and Pestle seed grinders have been recovered, they usually were found on the East side of tepee circles buried shallow next to where the entry would have been. Around here the natives traveled with there seasonal food gathering practices and used the same place for their tepees every year, the ground was dished out at those locations and could still be found 50 years ago. The stones were flat and showed the results of grinding, the tool was a cylinder with rounded ends, one end smaller than the other, those ends were probably used to break up seeds and dried roots for grinding, which was done using the sides of the cylinders. They did not pack those stones from camp to camp.
jud
Mano y Metate
Is what the archaeologists call them. I once found an abandoned camp on top of an Arizona mesa while running E-tape surveys... there were 10 or so just siting there like they had been used the day before. I would have liked to brought one back but I already was making a couple of two mile packs to get the equipment in and out. I did get a few pictures though. Don't know if I could find my way back there now and they are no doubt on Fed land so collecting there today would be a big no-no.
Alan, the rivers here are very low and exposing areas that haven't been seen for a long time. I first found the stone ball and thought it was a curious object due to its shape. The area I was searching was a limestone bottom, so it stood out. Then I later found the stone in the same area, so assume they go together, but perhaps not.
The stone is very hard, so I have no idea how that ball would have been made, let alone the perfect hole that the ball fits into.
The grinding stones for grains, like corn, are much larger. That one is purposely small. If it was used for making paints there would surely be residue. No, it does look like purpose designed for herbal uses, just as would be the duties of the Medicine Man, Shaman. Very rare I have seen the grain grinding stones with any sribing or symbols. A Shaman's artifacts would be expected to be symboled, no less so than a Chief's.
I would say it is a Shamans herbal grinding stone. See if there is an Anthro Prof at a nearby University that might give some incite.
