A !Kwe (fossilized doughnut) unearthed by our building activities at AISM.

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