Ok, we're past April Fool's Day, so you can assume that this is a 
serious question ...

In the past 30 years, I have seen a number of small disks that have 
been created from decorated historic ceramics, either chipped and/or 
ground round, with color pattern on one side and white or undecorated 
on the other.  My graduate school mentors described these as "gaming 
disks", created for games where an odds or evens scoring system was 
assumed.   Usually these are about 0.5 inch or slightly more in 
diameter.  I have seen them in both historic period Native American 
and Euroamerican sites.  As such, I have always assumed the 
categorization logical and valid.

I recently found one of these in what appeared to be a mid-nineteenth 
century agricultural assemblage (actually, a blue flow specimen on a 
very hard white paste).  Mentioned the gaming piece conclusion tomy 
client, and he scoffed, dismissing it as a gizzard stone from 
chickens.  Which reminded me that I have heard similar attributions 
in the past.

Anyone care to hazard an opinion about gizzard stones ... Do they 
really exist?  How big a stone would a chicken ingest?  Or anything 
else germaine to gaming stones and such.  I will be glad to e-mail a 
photo of my example to anyone interested.

Thanks.
-- 


Mark C. Branstner

Illinois Transportation
Archaeological Research Program
209 Nuclear Physics Lab, MC-571
23 East Stadium Drive
Champaign, IL 61820

Phone: 217.244.0892
Fax: 217.244.7458
Cell: 517.927.4556
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"There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth,
without either virtue or talents ... The artificial aristocracy is a
mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to
prevent its ascendancy."

- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)