'Incredibly exciting' rare pre-Ice Age handaxe discovered on Orkney

STV News ^ | Tuesday, June 7, 2011 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

The Palaeolithic -- or Old Stone Age -- tool, which could be anything between 100,000 and 450,000 years old, is one of only ten ever to be found in Scotland. The axe, which was found on a stretch of shore in St Ola by a local man walking along the beach, is the oldest man-made artefact ever found in Orkney. The stone tool, which is around five-and-a-half inches long, has been broken, and originally would have tapered to a point opposite the cutting edge, but at some point in time, the point broke off and someone reworked the flint to its present straight edge. Orkney-based archaeologist Caroline Wickham-Jones... a lecturer in archaeology at Aberdeen University, said: "This axe is definitely older than 100,000 years -- so old it's become geology. It was made and used an incredibly long time ago -- pre-Ice Age -- and whoever made it would have been familiar with animals long since extinct -- the woolly mammoth, for example... I don't think the axe is made on the islands as there is not enough flint here to produce such a big block of stone. But it would be possible that they had taken with them from somewhere else, or traded it with other people. That would explain why it was reworked after it was broken." ...The Palaeolithic -- or Old Stone Age -- started about 2.6 million years ago and lasted till the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BCE... In Britain, the earliest evidence of human activity dates from about 700,000 years ago. The earliest proof of people in Scotland dates from 14,000 years ago.

[SunkenCiv]

Discovered: The tool could potentially 'set back our known history'.

[Larry Lucido]

Those are on sale at Home Depot this week.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Flintknappers ‘R’ Us.

[Lancey Howard]

Those are on sale at Home Depot this week.

I no longer shop at Homo Depot.

[Silly]

Kind of looks like a rock to me...

[Berlin_Freeper]

Or, an archaeologist planted it there.

[SatinDoll]

I knew someone who used to flintknap stone, just to see how it could have been done.

He said it was incredibly frustrating.

[dog breath]

Interesting little mystery, thanks for the article.

[Eva]

We have a whole collection of tools that look like that. The Indians on the WA coast were still stone age in the 1800s. We have all sizes, too. You can tell that some are kid size. The Indians here probably used them to open clam shells, etc.

The one thing that no one seems to be able to identify looks like a stone hot dog.

[hellbender]

You have to be knappy-headed to do it right.

Seriously, people who learn the technique can put edges on the stone with amazing speed.

[freedumb2003]

I no longer shop at Homo Depot.

Here is the same item as offered at Loews.

[calex59]

I knew someone who used to flintknap stone, just to see how it could have been done.

He said it was incredibly frustrating.

I still know a guy that makes arrow heads, spear heads etc. It took him a long time to become and expert but he persevered, I guess it is just something you have to want to do for one reason or another.

[Salamander]

They’re all sold out, here.

No rain-checks, either..:(

[VanShuyten]

A friend of mine is a good flint knapper. He showed all of us how to do it - finding and selecting flints, finding and using good hammer stones, controlling the way the flint breaks, etc. It's actually fairly easy to get a cutting edge, but I can't imagine how much skill and time would be required to make a 10” Clovis point.

[Explorer89]

But how do you date something made from a chunk of rock? Very lucky that the guy decided to pick it up. I might have seen that and said, “oh, chunk of rock”.

[BIGLOOK]

They used obsidian once too but flint was much more durable.

And of course not that many had a convenient volcano in their neighborhood.

[TigersEye]

I no longer shop at Homo Depot.

Their corporate policies were more conservative 400,000 years ago.

[James C. Bennett]

The one thing that no one seems to be able to identify looks like a stone hot dog.

LOL!

[TangoLimaSierra]

But how do you date something made from a chunk of rock?

My thoughts, too.