Confusion about these weird fossilized bagels is rife around
the world, it seems to be a stone age technology that can be found from the
Santa Barbara channel region, to the Congo, to the American school of
Mozambique. Our specimen was unearthed with the current building efforts at the
seaward side of campus. Yes, I was surprised to find it in the dirt after a
pipe was laid between the science and the math blocks.
There are records pretty much like the AISM specimen, in round
stone from the Gulf
Coast of Mexico, to the Guatemalan highlands and on some Pacific islands. These
petrified, perforated rock rings show a diversity of design that indicates a
similar diversity of uses.
Southern African San beliefs suggest that these so called
digging stick stones had a special significance beyond everyday use. Bushmen
women would communicate with Shamans and contact the spirit world by beating
the ground with a bored stone from a digging stick.
It would seem that although European explorers saw and
recorded both San and Bantu peoples using these stones, no-one recorded them
making them. The San themselves allegedly claimed that they found the stones already
drilled.
There is the possibility that they were also used as mace
heads, and some archaeologists feel that they were once used as currency. Well
there you have it then, the first ancient multi tool. Move over Swiss army
knife.
Noah with the !Kwe at the discovery site
