How far back in history does axe eye mounting method date??

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348win

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I been watching videos of hafting axes. The thought crossed my mind, how far back in history does the axe eye, kerf and wedge design date???

Early 1800's??
 
Forgive me if I'm mistaken Ernest, but most stone axes that I have seen didn't have eyes and were instead wedged themselves into a wooden haft. Just from some quick searching I'm seeing bronze age axes were socketed to a handle similarly to modern socket chisels. This seemed to continue into the iron age at least in Europe. The Romans had eyed axes, though they might have been slip fit rather than kerf and wedge. I would guess the kerf and wedge technology came along later.
 
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I now live in a culture that was using stone age tools until the late 18th century, no axes or adzes with eyes. Now the pre contact Hawaiians were VERY skilled with making stone tools. They built outrigger canoes and voyaged all over the vast Pacific. An area of interest to me is how quickly the Hawaiian tool makers converted to metal when it was available to them in quanties large enough to use for tools. They did know what metal was because pieces of metal washed up with shipwreck pieces pre contact. My archeologist friend at Hawaii Volcano National Park claims that the stone on the Big Island is as good as it gets for tool making in Oceania. The stone quarry on Mauna Kea was a sacred site and so revered that only the tool makers were allowed to go there. Also, I dealt a lot with archeologist on mainland USA, again, no stone tools with eyes. Some of my friends are experimental archeologists. They have tried to replicate stone axes with eyes, and could not. Certainly no kerf and wedge, the wedge would split the stone. If they could have hafted with an eye, it would have been a slip fit.
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I have not found anybody who can fix a date for the kerf and wedge system over the slip fit system on metal axes to my satisfaction.
 
Old Axeman said:
I now live in a culture that was using stone age tools until the late 18th century, no axes or adzes with eyes. Now the pre contact Hawaiians were VERY skilled with making stone tools. They built outrigger canoes and voyaged all over the vast Pacific. An area of interest to me is how quickly the Hawaiian tool makers converted to metal when it was available to them in quanties large enough to use for tools. They did know what metal was because pieces of metal washed up with shipwreck pieces pre contact. My archeologist friend at Hawaii Volcano National Park claims that the stone on the Big Island is as good as it gets for tool making in Oceania. The stone quarry on Mauna Kea was a sacred site and so revered that only the tool makers were allowed to go there. Also, I dealt a lot with archeologist on mainland USA, again, no stone tools with eyes. Some of my friends are experimental archeologists. They have tried to replicate stone axes with eyes, and could not. Certainly no kerf and wedge, the wedge would split the stone. If they could have hafted with an eye, it would have been a slip fit.
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I have not found anybody who can fix a date for the kerf and wedge system over the slip fit system on metal axes to my satisfaction.
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I see you have anecdotes from two different places as a basis for a universal denial of the existence of a Stone Age axe with an eye. Why do you insist on undermining yourself with this level of logic? There is a whole other world beyond USA's boarder.
 
This picture shows an stone age axe called a "boat axe" and they was in use for 6.000 years ago in Scandinavia.

We have found stone axes with drilled hole that are around 9.000 years old - but they have much simpler design then boat axes come to Scandinavia when we started to become farmers.
Before that we all was hunter/gatherer.

So, here the handle hole are around 9.000 yers old.

Thomas

Boat axes
 
Perhaps it is in place to explain that the Swedish culture are around 12000 year old - and we still find old livingplaces, old houses, graves and so on "every day". Our museums are filled up of stone tools, bronsage tools, iron age tools and viking tools. Stone tools holds up for time, bronze tools also - but iron tools rust away in time - so we jave more stone tools then ironage tools :)

This pic shows some of the tools in a museum:
https://i.ibb.co/QPtV6KV/image.jpg

Thomas
 
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Eyed axes date back to the neolithic, but I'm not sure if we've found any on original intact handles.
 
We are not talking about stone tools with an eye. We are talking about a stone axe to cut wood. To cut wood you need stone that will take and hold an edge. Stone that will hold an edge is too hard to drill a hole in for a haft without a metal tool for a drill. If you have metal why would you not make a metal axe ? I believe that is why I, and my archeologist friends in the US, have only seen stone axes that were wedged in a wood haft.
 
Old Axeman said:
We are not talking about stone tools with an eye. We are talking about a stone axe to cut wood. To cut wood you need stone that will take and hold an edge. Stone that will hold an edge is too hard to drill a hole in for a haft without a metal tool for a drill. If you have metal why would you not make a metal axe ? I believe that is why I, and my archeologist friends in the US, have only seen stone axes that were wedged in a wood haft.
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Much research has been done on neolithic methods of boring holes in stone. It's very possible, though a labor-intensive process (as most stone work always has been) and most involve the use of either a fixed flint or quartz drilling bit or a consumable organic tube used in conjunction with abrasive quartz or emery sand.
 
42-yes very possible, but certainly not practical. Practical ruled the day in Stone Age, as it still should today, in my opinion. Also it would not be an advantage for chopping wood. First, a eye hole would need to be quite large in order to accommodate a adequate haft. The eye would most likely be close to round as the oval axe eye only seems to show up at a much later date in history. Boring a eye hole this size in hard stone would be very laborious indeed. A eye hole this size, with side walls thick enough to hold in stone, would make for a very large and heavy tool to fell and buck trees (maybe for splitting). This is why in EdgePal's picture all of the many axe and adze shaped heads were attached to a haft without an eye hole. The few tools in the picture that I could see with eye holes had very thick side walls and were used for some purpose other than chopping trees.

Now lets talk about EdgePal's other picture. This is a beautifully made tool. But the perfectly round eye hole with the perfectly round collar would have been VERY hard to do using a fixed flint or quartz drilling bit or a organic tube used in conjunction. This leads me to the speculation that this was a very special axe constructed to be placed in the tomb of a important person. In short, not a user tool.
 
I think that quarts sand to drilling holes in stone tools - also in flintstone.

Quarts sand are hard and can be used (filtered) to different grits. In early dark ages they use quarts sand when they grinded and polished knifes and swords. We humans have long ecperience in grinding tools, also flint stone can be grinded smooth - and the only material that can do that during that time was quarts.

During dark ages they filtered quarts sand to different grits, mix the sand with fat and use this as a sort og slurry. With a "pipe" of bone or hard wood they could drill holes. In a slits in stone they could form complete axes.

In Sweden we gave found axes sacryfyed in bogs, often depots with many axes. I con.not remember any axe with holes in found this way.
Perhaps they formed many axes at the same time - but drill holes in them when they needed a new axe?
That can explain that most axes found do not have a drilled hole...

What they had was time to do it.

To fell trees with stone tools works fine but you do not work in the same way we work using steel tools - and they did not fell big trees what we know.

You are correct, boat axes have a wonderful design - and we do not know how they was used or by who.
They are also named "battle axes" and status axes.
But, they was in use. We have found a lot of them grinded down nearly complete. But we do not know to what they was used.

But, with a long flexible handle, a short sharp edge, they could penetrate skulls very easy - or cross them with the axe neck. Good weapon for horsemen perhaps?

Thomas
 
Old Axeman said:
42-yes very possible, but certainly not practical. Practical ruled the day in Stone Age, as it still should today, in my opinion. Also it would not be an advantage for chopping wood. First, a eye hole would need to be quite large in order to accommodate a adequate haft. The eye would most likely be close to round as the oval axe eye only seems to show up at a much later date in history. Boring a eye hole this size in hard stone would be very laborious indeed. A eye hole this size, with side walls thick enough to hold in stone, would make for a very large and heavy tool to fell and buck trees (maybe for splitting). This is why in EdgePal's picture all of the many axe and adze shaped heads were attached to a haft without an eye hole. The few tools in the picture that I could see with eye holes had very thick side walls and were used for some purpose other than chopping trees.

Now lets talk about EdgePal's other picture. This is a beautifully made tool. But the perfectly round eye hole with the perfectly round collar would have been VERY hard to do using a fixed flint or quartz drilling bit or a organic tube used in conjunction. This leads me to the speculation that this was a very special axe constructed to be placed in the tomb of a important person. In short, not a user tool.
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We have found countless eyed stone axes from the Neolithic. :) From what I can see, eyed stone axes date to the late Neolithic and carried over into the early Copper/Bronze Age before being supplanted by metal tools.

Battle-Axe-Culture.jpg
 
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Again, look at EdgePal's picture with the enormous amout of stone tools. There are no tools that would work well for cutting wood that have eye holes. I never said there were not any stone tools with eye holes. I said that stone tools for cutting (felling, bucking) trees worked best with the stone bit inserted, and wraped in a wood haft. If you have actually felled and bucked much wood with a axe, try and imagine doing it with a modern stone masons hammer or sledge. The tools 42 just displayed had a purpose, but it was not cutting wood in my opinion. Now, with all your vast experience felling and bucking trees with a modern metal axe, imagine doing it with a flat piece of sharp stone about the profile of a modern double bit axe. The stone would be slightly thicker in the center (where the DB eye is located), and in that location would be a grove on each side of the stone axe. A wood haft would cradle the head, and be wraped in this location. There are many examples of stone age tools that look like what I just described. And, they actually work cutting wood.

Now as far as this "they did not fell big trees" statement. That may be true in some parts of the world, but not in North America, Hawaii, or the South Pacific.
Read the accounts of Captian Cook's experience with the ocean going outrigger canoes that were constructed with stone tools.
 
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Whether or not they were used on wood is *mostly* inconsequential to the question that was posed. They question was pertaining to the development of the wedge-and-kerf method of hafting axes, and the development of eyed axes of any kind is pertinent to answering that question.

We don't see elongated eyes in axe heads until the mid- to late Bronze Age, to the best of my knowledge, probably as people realized that just because the eyes they'd been using in stone had to be round on account of boring them out didn't mean that it also had to be round in bronze. However, I reckon that we *probably* didn't see wedge and kerf hafting become common until saws suitable for ripping a kerf were fairly well developed, which was likely the early iron age. While it's possible to split a kerf instead it has a far greater chance of the split working its way down the handle over time and I can't imagine it would have been considered an ideal method to the point of making heads specifically intended to be hafted that way. It likely developed as a result of a flush slip-fit handle shrinking with time and the owner coming up with wedging as a solution to make the end bigger again so it fully filled the eye (much as I often see done on adzes that had this very thing happen to them) and then realized that they could use that and a shoulder below the head as a way of keeping a head from coming off *either* end of the handle by accident.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
We have found countless eyed stone axes from the Neolithic. :) From what I can see, eyed stone axes date to the late Neolithic and carried over into the early Copper/Bronze Age before being supplanted by metal tools.

Battle-Axe-Culture.jpg
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I'd be interested to know where and what type of archeological sites these eyed stone axes came from, and if the contexts of those sites gave a clue as to their use. They look a lot like some modern splitting mauls I have seen with round eyes. Maybe the designers of those axes had seen these Neolithic ones in a museum haha
This thread is great and what I love about this forum, a lot of knowledge coming together and (mostly) civil discussion :D
 
Malus said:
I'd be interested to know where and what type of archeological sites these eyed stone axes came from, and if the contexts of those sites gave a clue as to their use. They look a lot like some modern splitting mauls I have seen with round eyes. Maybe the designers of those axes had seen these Neolithic ones in a museum haha
This thread is great and what I love about this forum, a lot of knowledge coming together and (mostly) civil discussion :D
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They're chiefly from what has been dubbed the Battle Axe Culture (also known as the Boat Axe Culture) that was an offshoot of the Corded Ware Culture, but the Corded Ware Culture had some axes like these also. Circa 2800–2300 BC.
 
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