Tweet
Large Greenstone Axe Pre-Form
Here’s an interesting item collected in Derbyshire in the UK. It’s a big axe preform or “rough-out” from the Neolithic period, circa 3,000BC. I haven’t seen one quite this large before.
This material is very specific to the Langdale Valley in Cumbria, principally at a place known as the Pike of Stickle (a “pike” is a kind of mountain peak). There, a narrow vein of this apparently special material runs through the volcanic bedrock. It’s a metamorphosed “greenstone” – a hard, fine-grained, epidotised tuff. It’s a lot greener than it looks in the pics… it’s overcast here today.
So, this item was found well over 100 miles from the origin of its material. I refer to it as a special material since a Neolithic axe factory was in operation where the material is found, despite the remote location and the unstable, inaccessible nature of the terrain. Here’s a pic of the scree slope at the site:
Frost-shattered material lies everywhere and the scree includes many flakes and “reject” axes, although it is now illegal to remove anything from the site.
Preforms and finished tools – especially axes – were traded from this site all over Britain and into continental Europe. They generally have a tapered profile which suggests that they were intended to be transverse-hafted through a holed stave. We can be sure this is a preform and not a finished hand-axe since this prestigious material was invariably polished after knapping. The evidence suggests that these polished axes were high status items - they frequently have an extremely high finish, but show little or no evidence of having been used and are sometimes found in contexts that suggest placement as an offering.
This looks very much like a pot-lid fracture but I can’t imagine that heat-treating this material would improve its knapping characteristics:
Frost can create these kinds of fractures too, so I guess it’s probably frost damage.
Painshill
This material is very specific to the Langdale Valley in Cumbria, principally at a place known as the Pike of Stickle (a “pike” is a kind of mountain peak). There, a narrow vein of this apparently special material runs through the volcanic bedrock. It’s a metamorphosed “greenstone” – a hard, fine-grained, epidotised tuff. It’s a lot greener than it looks in the pics… it’s overcast here today.
So, this item was found well over 100 miles from the origin of its material. I refer to it as a special material since a Neolithic axe factory was in operation where the material is found, despite the remote location and the unstable, inaccessible nature of the terrain. Here’s a pic of the scree slope at the site:
Frost-shattered material lies everywhere and the scree includes many flakes and “reject” axes, although it is now illegal to remove anything from the site.
Preforms and finished tools – especially axes – were traded from this site all over Britain and into continental Europe. They generally have a tapered profile which suggests that they were intended to be transverse-hafted through a holed stave. We can be sure this is a preform and not a finished hand-axe since this prestigious material was invariably polished after knapping. The evidence suggests that these polished axes were high status items - they frequently have an extremely high finish, but show little or no evidence of having been used and are sometimes found in contexts that suggest placement as an offering.
This looks very much like a pot-lid fracture but I can’t imagine that heat-treating this material would improve its knapping characteristics:
Frost can create these kinds of fractures too, so I guess it’s probably frost damage.
Painshill
Of course it's overcast, Roger. You're in England ! Nice preform axe, got any pix of the finished ones ?
Comment