Posted on 12/17/2004 11:37:14 AM PST by blam
ARCHAEOLOGISTS EXCITED BY 500,000-YEAR-OLD AXE FIND IN QUARRY
By David Prudames 16/12/2004
This image shows the axe head from different angles. Photo: Graham Norrie, University of Birmingham Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity.
A Stone Age hand axe dating back 500,000 years has been discovered at a quarry in Warwickshire.
The tool was found at the Smiths Concrete Bubbenhall Quarry at Waverley Wood Farm, near Coventry, which has already produced evidence of some of the earliest known human occupants of the UK.
It was uncovered in gravel by quarry manager John Green who took it to be identified by archaeologists at the University of Birmingham.
"We are very excited about this discovery," enthused Professor David Keen of the university's Archaeology Field Unit.
"Lower Palaeolithic artefacts are comparatively rare in the West Midlands compared to the south and east of England so this is a real find for us."
Despite being half and million years old the tool is very well-preserved and will eventually go on show at Warwickshire Museum.
Amongst other things, the hand axe would have been used for butchering animals, but what is perhaps most intriguing about it is that it is made of a type of volcanic rock called andesite.
Photo: Graham Norrie, University of Birmingham Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity.,
Andesite bedrock only occurs in the Lake District or North Wales and this is only the ninth andesite hand axe to be found in the midlands in over a century. Archaeologists are now trying to figure out how the tool might have got there.
Although it is possible the rock was transported to the midlands by glacial ice from the north west there is as yet no evidence for it, which suggests humans might have brought it into the area.
The lack of material for good quality hand axes in the midlands would probably have been known to our ancestors, therefore these tools could have been brought in ready made.
It may also be significant that all previous andesite hand axe finds have been made in deposits of the Bytham River, a now lost river system that crossed England from the Cotswolds via the West Midlands and Leicester to the North Sea.
This valley was destroyed in a later glaciation and seems to have provided a route into the midlands for Palaeolithic hunters.
Half a million years ago the area was at the edge of the human world, linked to Europe along the Bytham valley and across a land-bridge existing before the cutting of the Straits of Dover.
In addition to the hand axe the Smiths Concrete Bubbenhall Quarry has produced 18 other Palaeolithic tools, currently under investigation by the team at Birmingham Archaeology.
Other finds in the area include bones and teeth from a straight-tusked elephant, which are also set to be displayed at Warwickshire Museum.
Not because it has no carbon because it may have some carbon but because it does not take in C-14 from the enviornment as a living organism does.
Other radioctive dating systems go back hundreds of thousands of years.
I was trying to think of a reply but yours fits so I will bump it.
I have a problem with that age also. Something fishy here.
You're damn right it is, that handaxe is the same as Microsoft Word 1,500,000 BC.
Since it is missing any tags or labels, how did they arrive at that date?
Right, your answer is more accurate.
Yes I'm aware of many dating techniques, though I certainly never had much need professionally for anything other than C14 and dendrochronology.
YEC mega-dittoes
Looks like a rock that someone who knew what he/she was doing whacked (multiple times) with another rock, to me...
FWIW, I've whacked my share of rocks -- and have the scars and debitage (stone chips) pile to prove it...
No doubt you are aware that, for suitably homogenous and well-calibrated sources, photomicrographic measurement of the depth of hydration (patination) has proved to be a fair first-order aging technique for flaked obsidian. However, since hydration rate is strongly affected by the surounding soil (pH, etc.) conditions, I have never relied on it.
But this specimen is supposedly andesite, which is so heterogenous that all patination 'bets are off'...
Thanks again!
thanks, will think about for a while, thanks again.
So we have an axe and a carcass buried together, and we have a second axe (call it Axe #2).
The dating mechanism in this case only works on organics, so they are dating the carcass, not axe #1, and they are using the face that the axe is lying near the carcass to date Axe #1. Since Axe #2 has the same morphology in creation as Axe #1 they are dating Axe#2 to be the same age as Axe#1.
I've seen this technique used before and the patination was called 'desert varnish.'
bet it's so rusted it ain't fit to use.
The axe looks identical to those found round California, chiselled by Indians...er, Indigenous Peoples...about 250 years ago. I guess human technology didn't change much over 499,750 years.
LOL
How old would would an axehead be if someone chiseled one right now out of a nearby rock, from some ancient volcano formed a billion years ago...
Me, too. Fortunately the desert environment is fairly consistent, so the patination is repeatable. When you throw in things like organic acids and widely varying soil moisture levels (as are common in the forests where I live) the repeatability gets more than a little bit shaky...
TXnMA
Texas Archeological Steward
Less than a week. The age of the material used has essentially nothing to do with the date of manufacture.
BTW, "chiseled" doesn't describe the process awfuly well. To be more precise, they are "flaked" or "knapped". The process consists of hitting the soon-to-be-tool piece near the edge with another stone. This knocks off "conchoidal" (shell-shaped) flakes from the opposite side.
If you look at the photos of the "axe" in this article, it has been hit so as to remove flakes from both sides (i.;e. it is "bifaced"). In fact, since I haven't seen wear patterns indicating was actually used as an axe, I (and most of my colleagues) would simply call it a "biface".
At Least, THAT's what we Believe!!
Doc
Does it have the initial "C" inscribed on it (for "Conan" the Barbarian)?
LOL
It is
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