Overseas Big axe head

[bigbear]

Went to the archaeology museum in Hitzacker ( on the Elbe in Lower Saxony ) today. Some chaps doing practical hands on research by trying to grind axe heads. The one in the picture is as the man admitted to big to be useable but they like a challenge.
Had a good chat with them, one at least has a PhD in Archaeology and is very keen on the experimental side. He said its about 100 hours of work to make an axe head, a massive investment of time to us, but how did Palaeolithic people view time, and did they have slaves do some of it or was there an apprenticeship process ? So much we cannot know. And even if this method works we cannot be sure it was what was used then.

Sorry, no idea how to turn it round or insert the video clip I have of it.........

 

[Robson Valley]

Canadian winters can be both brutal and extremely cold or wet as is the west coast.
Winter was a time of construction with little else to do each day except to keep from dying of the cold.

Some of the First Nations of the west coast did raiding and trading down the coast and they did capture and bring home slaves. Nobody knows exactly what the division of labor might have been.

The stone age, paleo living, only ended here some 300 years ago, if that. So there's still lots of evidence left of what they were doing. Great resurgence in this day and time in learning the "how" they made their livings.

I realize that this is not Europe. I expect that development was along similar lines.

 

[Stew]

What’s the material?

 

[bigbear]

Flinty rock of some sort worked on sandstone with some quartzite in it, I think.

 

[Wayland]

I had far more spare time before I bought a television.

A couple of hours in the evening while chatting soon passes and before the season is out you will have a new axe.

 

[TLM]

I realize that this is not Europe. I expect that development was along similar lines.

In the north I think kind of. Though the stone age did end some while ago. If you go to the Med coast to sea level they barely know what a winter is.

 

[Robson Valley]

The stone age/paleolithic is alive and well here. European contact was just 3(?) centuries ago.
There never was a Chalcolithic Age or a Bronze Age at all.

The coast is littered with glacial debris from the interior.
One thing is the fibrous mineral, nephrite jade. It is/was the stone of choice
for adze blades, used in conjunction with fire to carve the 40' - 60' seaworthy canoes.

There's precious little evidence that First Nations ever made much use of any tool shaped like an axe.
Nobody uses an axe for wood carving. Even to split wood, we use wedges and walk them down the log.
Elbow adze, D adze and both crooked and straight knives make up the usual kit.
I used to use a mallet and many gouges but I quit and use FN tools for the past 7(?) years.

The Japan Current delivers all sorts of things from the Far East, iron included.
On European contact, the Haida were already familiar with iron.
After the Fukushima meltdown and the earthquake/tsunami, we even got a motorcycle,
still packed in enough styrofoam to float all the way across the Pacific!

There is copper metal nuggets in coastal river gravels ( gold and platinum, too.)
I've seen them in the UBC/MOA = size of peas and bigger.
Copper to First Nations was and is symbolic of wealth and prosperity.