Stone axes

They have high centerlines and bevels! I geuss when you do not have a handle not sticking is important. Lol. Cool article.
 
It's interesting to speculate how such a large tool was utilized. It could have sat on the ground between your legs and been used to break marrow bones against. You could either strike the bone directly against the stone or for more controlled worked baton the bone with a wooden club.

It's curious that they have been bifacially flaked (top & bottom) all the way around. Only one edge would be needed for my suggested use.

I once found a similarly large biface while working an archeological site along the Columbia river for Eastern Washington University. The large biface I found was a granite boulder 20" in diameter and 8" thick. One side had been bifacially flaked to an axe-like edge. At the time it was the largest stone tool any of the archeologists at the site had ever seen.
 
Seeing it in a man's hand puts it in perspective. This could be wielded in hand.

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Rare that intact and full size stone tools are ever found because they were highly prized. Usually they're discarded broken ones, after having been repurposed into other uses as many times as possible. I'm picturing a vindictive or scared neighbour or jealous husband tossing these into the lake or mud, or deliberately burying them.
 
300Six said:
Rare that intact and full size stone tools are ever found because they were highly prized. Usually they're discarded broken ones, after having been repurposed into other uses as many times as possible. I'm picturing a vindictive or scared neighbour or jealous husband tossing these into the lake or mud, or deliberately burying them.
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Maybe they were never intended to be used at all?

I hope we get to hear more about them.
 
garry3 said:
Maybe they were never intended to be used at all?
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It's a lot of work or effort for a ceremonial or art piece. If true it would indicate a society whose needs were well met. It would seem unlikely for a tool of that age. But it's entirely possible.

For years archeologists mused over the large numbers of small 'scrapers' found on archeological digs. Finally after many years some anthropologiocal studies of modern stone age people revealed the truth. They were simply used as spoons - hence very common.

We think of these as hand axes but they could just as well be large 'spoons' - aka shovels. I could see digging with that large one. Less impact on a shovel than an axe. They would last longer.
 
Square_peg said:
It's a lot of work or effort for a ceremonial or art piece. If true it would indicate a society whose needs were well met. It would seem unlikely for a tool of that age. But it's entirely possible.

For years archeologists mused over the large numbers of small 'scrapers' found on archeological digs. Finally after many years some anthropologiocal studies of modern stone age people revealed the truth. They were simply used as spoons - hence very common.

We think of these as hand axes but they could just as well be large 'spoons' - aka shovels. I could see digging with that large one. Less impact on a shovel than an axe. They would last longer.
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Some years ago I went with a relative to visit an archaeologist who just happened at the time to be excavating a desert cave here in SW Idaho. He showed me two five gallon buckets full of the most beautiful obsidian knifes I have ever seen. They were about a foot long, all of them broken in two and buried in that cave. The environment there is very rough, life could not have been easy.

I will never believe scrapers are spoons. Sounds like it came from an educated idiot.
 
Undoubtedly scrapers were used for many things, from cleaning hides to extracting sinew, to making bows and arrows and even as spoons. Lacking a metal spoon I'd choose a stone one over a wood one. We found great numbers of small scrapers, 2" diameter and less, on a dig I worked. Many started as a flake likely discarded from a knife or spear making operation. They were picked up and micro-flaked to shape them.
 
Square_peg said:
Undoubtedly scrapers were used for many things, from cleaning hides to extracting sinew, to making bows and arrows and even as spoons. Lacking a metal spoon I'd choose a stone one over a wood one. We found great numbers of small scrapers, 2" diameter and less, on a dig I worked. Many started as a flake likely discarded from a knife or spear making operation. They were picked up and micro-flaked to shape them.
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Oh I understand now. I have never considered them as scrapers. To me a scraper is what we call "thumb and finger scrapers" or the larger kind which we call "turtle back scrapers".
Them flakes would certainly work as a scraper though and many of them show signs of having been reworked. I have often wondered how well they would hold up to butching large game. They can be razor blades.
 
garry3 said:
I have often wondered how well they would hold up to butching large game. They can be razor blades.
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Good cryptocrystalline rock like flint, chert or obisdian fractures along a bulb of percussion right down to the last molecule. A natural break is 500 times sharper than a scalpel.

http://obsidian-scalpel.blogspot.com/2012/12/surgeon-use-for-obsidian-scalpel-blades.html

But they are very hard and prone to chipping or breaking. Used within their limits they will hold an edge for a very long time.

In college I took a few archeology classes. One of them included a series of 'Lithics Labs' - stone tool making. Great class! Funny thing is I actually used those skills several times later in life as a construction superintendent while directing the demolition of some large glacial erratics to clear areas for new construction. Striking platform, bulb of percussion. It all scales up and still works on stones as large as a dump truck.
 
I'm not a rock hound but did find mysterious stone chips at lake-side native tent circles up in the arctic 20 years ago. The properties of these glass-like stones are such that a flaked edge is razor sharp and I didn't have the slightest problem carving meat or cutting vegetables with them. My resident hunting buddy who is more inclined to appreciate old artifacts suggested that these types of stones were items of widespread trade and had probably came from 1000s of miles away. That we found the remnants of a birch bark canoe (there are no birch trees of any size up there) at the same location didn't dispel his theory.
 
I had to wear a tie last year for my daughters wedding. So, I had these bolo ties made up. Not sure what the white one is made from or where the source material is. The brown one is Bruneau jasper and was found on dads ranch about forty miles from the source.

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Moonw, note the high center lines on these American made arrow heads.;)
 
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