Stone Axe

[Drm50]

Last summer after a major wash out, I was fishing a local stream.
In a bank on outside of a bend about a foot from the top I spied
what I thought to be a spear head. When I got up there and dug
it out it was this stone axe lying flat. I would have rather found
spear head but axe is better than nothing. Local experts tell me
that it is pre Indian, from Hopwell culture. We used to find arrow
heads in bottoms along this creek, no with no till farming they
are harder to come by.

 

[gunnails]

Very cool, thanks for showing it.

 

[caromrk]

With modern technology we take so much for granted. That axe took many hours of skill and passion to create. It was "cutting edge" tech in it's day, the N frame of prehistory! Great find, and thanks for sharing.

 

[loc n load]

Stone AX

That is a tangible connection with our past. I grew up on a farm in the 50's and 60's over by the Eel river, not far from Bowling green Ind. That area was rich with artifacts, we always found arrow heads, etc every year when we plowed and disc'ed. There was a spot down along the river we used to haunt that had been a Indian encampment at one time and there was always things to find there after the river had been up and then receded.
I had an uncle that lived there all his life and had an impressive collection of arrow heads, spear points, axes & artifacts. It was awe inspiring to look at these tools & artifacts from a past culture that had trod, hunted, tilled and lived on the same ground that we were living on, hunting on and farming.

 

[Larry from Bend]

That's a very nice one.

Many years ago, my wife and I were hunting Jack Rabbits in sagebrush in SE Oregon. As we were walking along, my wife asked if Indians had ever inhabited this part of the Desert. I told her "NO". We had not walked 20 feet further when she picked up a beautifully knapped flint thumb scraper. Flint isn't found naturally in this area, but was traded for and carried there. Later that trip, we found a hidden spring in a deep coulee that had numerous broken arrow heads -- and a few good ones.

 

[BearBio]

I am the biologist working on a natural resources plan for a fairly large training base. I went on a tour of the base with the staff biologists, etc. One area we visited was an old Indian campground. It was really interesting. The Tribes would meet there each year to trade and camp for the winter (sorta like the mountain men rendezvous). Just walking from the cars through the site, we found two grinding stones (morteros or pestles for mortars.

Well we walked down to the riverbank and the whole beach was made up of (not littered with but composed of) stone flakes. The archaeologist with us explained these were chips from arrowhead and spear making. One of the biologists commented that he had never found an arrowhead in all the years he had worked there. The archaeologist intern reached down and pulled a spear point from under his foot. It was defective. She explained it took them 10 or 15 minutes to make an arrowhead or spear tip. That's why we find them so often. They weren't worth looking for if they lost one (missed).

Also, see my post about "She Who Watches" and the spear straightening stone there.

 

[Texas Star]

The stone axe was among man's earliest weapons/tools, and I'd be thrilled to find one. It's also going to be less brittle than a spear head.

I won't trade my Gerber and Buck hatchets for one, but when it was made, it was as good as they had.

The most primitive such items were used as far back as australopithecine times and were called hand axes. They were made to butcher game and for general cutting needs, millions of years ago in southern and eastern Africa.

 

[snubbyfan]

Kinda reminds me of my Navajo made stone tomahawk.

 

[Texas Star]

Kinda reminds me of my Navajo made stone tomahawk.

Is that a tourist item or a real Navajo war club?

I bought some "real Indian moccasins" in New Mexico that were made in Japan. That was when I was about 12. Now, they'd be made in China.

It'd be interesting to see some real Amerindian tomahawks. Many were using Euro blades/heads by the 1600's.

 

[Drm50]

Snubbie, looks to me like one of those West Virginia Navaho's
made that one on your bench while you were out. Ha ha!

 

[snubbyfan]

Is that a tourist item or a real Navajo war club?

I bought some "real Indian moccasins" in New Mexico that were made in Japan. That was when I was about 12. Now, they'd be made in China.

It'd be interesting to see some real Amerindian tomahawks. Many were using Euro blades/heads by the 1600's.

It's American Indian made and gifted to me by an American Indian friend.

I know my moccasins are "real Indian moccasins" because I made them.

 

[loeman]

Sorry, but none of this has anything to do with moccasins bought in New Mexico. We are talking about thousands of years prior to tourist trade moccasins sold in "trading posts" is NM and AZ

Fantastic find!. You have found what is known as a 3/4 grovved axe. As you can see the hafting groove goes 3/4 of the way around. It is an Archaic axe and is probably a minimum of 3000 years old. Later the prehistoric Americans learned how to make celts which were ungrooved. I have spent a lifetime of collecting prehistoric artifacts (guns are secondary) and in particular those from the Midwest. Congratulations on your find. It is really special.

I'm editing to inform you that your friends are incorrect. Yes, it is pre tribal Indian, but it is also pre Hopewell and pre Adena. The Adena and Hopewell made their wood cutting tools from ungrooved stone. Therefore your axe is predates Hopewell and Adena and is an Archaic artifact.

 

[CajunBass]

In another thread I mentioned doing a lot of Civil War relic hunting with a metal detector when I was a kid in rural Hanover County, Virginia. Well one of the side benefits to metal detecting is you spend a lot of time looking at the ground. We also found a lot of Indian arrowheads in those same fields where hundreds or even thousands of years later, those men in blue and grey fought over.

I didn't know a thing about them at the time, but would pick them up and bring them home to my grandfather. He kept them in cigar boxes. He'd ask me where I found them and so on. That old man had a memory like a computer disk. Years later, when he knew he was dying of cancer, he donated those arrowheads and such to I want to say William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Va. I remember sitting at his house with him and a couple of men from the college as he went through each box of heads, and told them the story of where he found it, or how he came to have it. I suppose they still have them or somebody does.

In the field behind our house was a low spot that had a vein of red clay that ran through it to the creek. After a spring plowing and a good rain we'd often find bits and pieces of pottery there, most likely from failed attempts. I always figured they came there to that clay for the purpose of making pottery. We also found a lot of what I later learned was "trade pipe." Bits and pieces of white pottery an inch or two long, maybe 3/8, to a half inch in diameter, with a small hole in it. I always figured they were for smoking but really had no idea what it might have been.

Sorry...I do get to rambling.

 

[6518John]

Fantastic find!. You have found what is known as a 3/4 grovved axe. As you can see the hafting groove goes 3/4 of the way around. It is an Archaic axe and is probably a minimum of 3000 years old. Later the prehistoric Americans learned how to make celts which were ungrooved. I have spent a lifetime of collecting prehistoric artifacts (guns are secondary) and in particular those from the Midwest. Congratulations on your find. It is really special.

Looks like the "natives" are still at it in the Midwest--well Ohio at least! There is truly nothing new under the sun.

http://smith-wessonforum.com/lounge/435560-refurishing-yet-another-axe-rainy-day-picture-essay.html

 

[Vulcan Bob]

Now that was a neat find, thanks for sharing it! The way things are going these days you may want to keep that handy, it just may be the only thing your allowed to have.

 

[Texas Star]

Sorry, but none of this has anything to do with moccasins bought in New Mexico. We are talking about thousands of years prior to tourist trade moccasins sold in "trading posts" is NM and AZ

Fantastic find!. You have found what is known as a 3/4 grovved axe. As you can see the hafting groove goes 3/4 of the way around. It is an Archaic axe and is probably a minimum of 3000 years old. Later the prehistoric Americans learned how to make celts which were ungrooved. I have spent a lifetime of collecting prehistoric artifacts (guns are secondary) and in particular those from the Midwest. Congratulations on your find. It is really special.

I'm editing to inform you that your friends are incorrect. Yes, it is pre tribal Indian, but it is also pre Hopewell and pre Adena. The Adena and Hopewell made their wood cutting tools from ungrooved stone. Therefore your axe is predates Hopewell and Adena and is an Archaic artifact.

You missed something. I wasn't referring to the original axe head, but to the item that Snubbyfan made or acquired, and which I think may not be a true Navajo tomahawk. I think his post was in jest.

But your info about the real prehistoric axe head was quite interesting. Why would later heads not be grooved? Were the civilizations that made them less advanced? The grooving suggests that the head could be more firmly attached to the handle/haft.

I'd be reluctant to declare anything "pre-tribal". We have no way of knowing the social orders of really ancient peoples, but I bet they had tribes.

Have you studied the weapons carried by Oetzi, or however one spells the name of that frozen guy found in the Alps about 20 years ago? He was apparently killed by other humans, about 5,000 years ago. His knife was really short. I forgot if he had an axe or spear. Need to check that.

It'd be interesting to compare contemporary stone weapons in Europe to those in the New World at that time.

What is a "celt" in this context? I only know about the Celts conquered by Rome and who make peaty whiskey today. Is a "celt" like a lith, a stone? What sort of stone is this axe head?

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

He was apparently killed by other humans, about 5,000 years ago. His knife was really short. I forgot if he had an axe or spear. Need to check that.

Somehow I have a feeling that you will find that he did not, leading to the somewhat early observation that the purpose of a knife was to fight one's way to a spear.

 

[Texas Star]

Somehow I have a feeling that you will find that he did not, leading to the somewhat early observation that the purpose of a knife was to fight one's way to a spear.

I get your allusion that a pistol is to fight your way to a rifle.

Oetzi's knife was a smaller utility model. Egyptians and others made larger flint daggers.

I think Oetzi had a bow or spear. Will check. Or you can. They did some very extensive studies of him and his property.

 

[loeman]

You missed something. I wasn't referring to the original axe head, but to the item that Snubbyfan made or acquired, and which I think may not be a true Navajo tomahawk. I think his post was in jest.

But your info about the real prehistoric axe head was quite interesting. Why would later heads not be grooved? Were the civilizations that made them less advanced? The grooving suggests that the head could be more firmly attached to the handle/haft.

I'd be reluctant to declare anything "pre-tribal". We have no way of knowing the social orders of really ancient peoples, but I bet they had tribes.

Have you studied the weapons carried by Oetzi, or however one spells the name of that frozen guy found in the Alps about 20 years ago? He was apparently killed by other humans, about 5,000 years ago. His knife was really short. I forgot if he had an axe or spear. Need to check that.

It'd be interesting to compare contemporary stone weapons in Europe to those in the New World at that time.

What is a "celt" in this context? I only know about the Celts conquered by Rome and who make peaty whiskey today. Is a "celt" like a lith, a stone? What sort of stone is this axe head?

Texas Star,
You've asked some great questions regarding Axes and Celts. I'll try to answer them in a new post that will follow this one.
loeman

 

[bhayles]

Sorry, but none of this has anything to do with moccasins bought in New Mexico. We are talking about thousands of years prior to tourist trade moccasins sold in "trading posts" is NM and AZ.

Like nothing else ever goes "off topic" around here...