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Help me identify this potential flint tool I found in Denmark!

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  • Help me identify this potential flint tool I found in Denmark!

    Hi all.

    My name is Peter and I just found this site - very interesting stuff here! I wonder if any of you could help me identify the following piece of flint I found last year in Denmark (I realize that this site is mostly US-based, but maybe someone here would still be able to help with some hints or ideas!).

    I presume it could be some sort of scraper but I am not sure. Most of the scrapers I have seen online are a lot more rough so I am not totally sure!

    Any thoughts?

    Thanks,
    Peter


  • #2
    Neolithic? way to much out of my league. But welcome to AH.com ,Roger would be the person to ask. I am sure he will chime in.
    Look to the ground for it holds the past!

    Comment


    • #3
      Hi Peter and welcome to the forum.

      We have a section for “International” artefacts (ie those which are not Native American), so I moved your post to that section but also left a temporary “re-direct” where you originally posted.

      If it is a tool then my feeling is that it would have to be Lower Palaeolithic and a “chopper”, not a scraper. I am however very doubtful. If you look at the curved ripples on the broken areas (these are shock waves that we call “conchoidal fractures”), they go in the wrong direction for what we call “hard hammer percussion” work. The ripples from a deliberate human blow should spread outwards from the point of impact (like the ripples from a stone thrown in a pond), and often do so from a flat area of the stone which has been prepared as a “platform” to ensure a clean strike.

      Your piece has what could be interpreted as a platform in the 4th picture, but the ripples radiate towards it not away from it. I would also guess that what looks like edge-refinement to create a “blade” is actually what we call “chattering”… the effect of water-tumbling on a thinner broken edge. You can see it to a lesser extent on the less exposed rims of the large break. In your case that could be from glacial melt-water tumbling.

      The other issue is that Denmark doesn’t have an occupation history consistent with tools of that type (unless you found it on a beach and it washed in from further south). The Scandinavian Peninsula didn’t become ice-free until about 13,000 years ago and all of Denmark apart from the southwestern part of Jutland, was covered by the Weichselian ice sheet during the Palaeolithic. There is no evidence for human habitation until about 14,500 years ago in the very late Upper Palaeolithic/Mesolithic when lithic tools would have been rather more refined.

      There have been several claims for early Palaeolithic axes and choppers from Denmark but only one (the “Fanø handaxe”) is convincing. However, it was an isolated find with no stratigraphic context at the foot of a cliff on a beach and was almost certainly transported from elsewhere.

      Other claimed finds for early Palaeolithic artefacts in Denmark are generally misidentified preforms for Mesolithic or Neolithic tools (unfinished artefacts in the early stages of preparation) and also “cores” for Mesolithic and Neolithic flake tools. A core is a chunk of stone or a cobble from which flakes have been struck to make smaller tools such as blades and points. This kind of thing is typical for a late core misidentified as an early chopper:

      Click image for larger version

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      [Pebble core from Samsø. Picture from “Handaxes from Denmark: Neandertal Tools or ‘Vicious Flints’?” by L. Johansen & D. Stapert in “Palaeohistoria 37/38 (1995/1996)”]
      I keep six honest serving-men (they taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.

      Comment


      • #4
        Hey there! Thanks for your great reply. Very detailed! I think you're totally right and this is just the work of mother nature. Making such a symmetric rock that fits great in your hand. If I was a stone-age guy I would definitely have used it as a tool

        I will go out and look some more. Thanks again!

        Comment


        • #5
          Hello and welcome! Yep, looks like glacial till, but you are right that it wouldn't take much to make a tool from it. Maybe a good opportunity to practice your flint knapping skills!

          Comment


          • #6
            Welcome to the forum Peter. You have access to some great Mesolithic and Neolithic material; some of the best in Europe. Good luck with your searching and looking forward to your future posts/finds

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