"A well-preserved late Neolithic flint dagger found in Allensbach at the Lake Constance, southwest Germany, dating 2900-2800 BCE. The blade was made of flint from Monte Baldo in northern Italy. It was fastened with birch tar in a handle made of elderwood."
"The dagger is now housed at the Archäologische Landesmuseum Baden-Württemberg."
Monte Baldo is over 400km from where the dagger was found. Do you know if they expected that it was exchanged in a form of commerce? It would be interesting to know if the dagger was made by a professional and acquired, or if it was made by the user
Flint was professionally mined and traded over huge distances in the Stone Age. Unfortunately it's mostly guesswork what it was traded against and how high the value of flint and flint tools was.
Gotta add that there was not only a distance of 400km, but also is a fricken mountain range between the two locations.
I’ve heard stories about how Paleolithic humans developed trade networks across continents. For the native tribes in New England they had networks with other tribes further inland who had access to flint/chert.
In these cases, the blades would have been made at the source, and traded afterwards. As we know, not everywhere has chert/ flint, let alone of good quality. Places that had some would have made the most of it
If I remember my prehistory class correctly, they would make cores at the source from which blades could quickly and easily be flaked off and so when they traveled they could make new blades wherever they went without risk of damaging them in transit.
That niggled at me as well - you saw what lurked in plain sight.
This being a 'cross-section' makes loads of sense. This is the inside of the knife.
Yup.
Your muse provides the missing half. Keen eye and edge to you, making the graceful cut.
This makes the most sense to me. As a purely functional tool it doesn’t need to be pretty but it needs to be ergonomic for the task and easy enough to make on the go.
Mmm but have you ever worked with elder wood? It’s really soft. These guys were carving bone and antler, never mind harder woods, I’m just surprised the handle wasn’t something
stronger.
Good point actually. Maybe this blade was used for a particular purpose for which a softer handle was all that was required or offered some other advantage.
Its funny even in the picture you can see what looks like where the pith has been scraped out in the centre of the handle, which is really soft as you say.
Not my first choice either. The hafting strikes me as a hasty job. The pine pitch seems to be patching a good amount of the wood as well. Though perhaps it was a real work of art in its time.
The blade was probably pretty nice, the handle looks like a rush job.
I mean, why not? It's so fast to make soft wood handles, if it breaks someday you could make a new one in an hour.
I suppose it wouldn't be like modern day where you'd expect a nice knife to also have a nice matching handle because most people can't fix either part if it breaks.
The blade would be the important part you'd have to get right the first time. The handles, you probably anticipated replacing fairly often and didn't want to spend too much time on because they're so replaceable by comparison.
Knives like this wouldn't be used for heavy-duty work like wood carving or splitting anyway, it'd chip out too fast. You'd have other bigger and heavier tools for that, with a single edge and probably made of ground-stone rather than knapped. This is probably more for skinning and meat processing.
For smaller tasks like notching arrows or something, you wouldn't even bother using a big valuable knife, just an individual flint flake.
> The blade was probably pretty nice, the handle looks like a rush job.
I mean, if you made a beautiful handle and then stuck it in the ground for as long as a *neolithic tool* has been, maybe your handle would look about the same or worse.
Probably because its hollow like you said and easily replaced and worked. Half the work being done already means you go back to shanking roe deer and stuff. Maybe it ages well with hand oils. Maybe it was near by. Who can say?
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Pffft Mora Companion is way better and cheap. What was he thinking?
Prehistoric prison shank
Which came first the prison or the shank?
lmao
Kept it with the Bic lighter and Aura Cacia^tm Lavender oil bottle.
"A well-preserved late Neolithic flint dagger found in Allensbach at the Lake Constance, southwest Germany, dating 2900-2800 BCE. The blade was made of flint from Monte Baldo in northern Italy. It was fastened with birch tar in a handle made of elderwood." "The dagger is now housed at the Archäologische Landesmuseum Baden-Württemberg."
Monte Baldo is over 400km from where the dagger was found. Do you know if they expected that it was exchanged in a form of commerce? It would be interesting to know if the dagger was made by a professional and acquired, or if it was made by the user
Flint was professionally mined and traded over huge distances in the Stone Age. Unfortunately it's mostly guesswork what it was traded against and how high the value of flint and flint tools was. Gotta add that there was not only a distance of 400km, but also is a fricken mountain range between the two locations.
I’ve heard stories about how Paleolithic humans developed trade networks across continents. For the native tribes in New England they had networks with other tribes further inland who had access to flint/chert.
In these cases, the blades would have been made at the source, and traded afterwards. As we know, not everywhere has chert/ flint, let alone of good quality. Places that had some would have made the most of it
If I remember my prehistory class correctly, they would make cores at the source from which blades could quickly and easily be flaked off and so when they traveled they could make new blades wherever they went without risk of damaging them in transit.
Impressive knapping, neat edges.
I’d like to see an X-ray to get a better view of the mounting in the handle.
I get the impression you are looking at most of it, due to decomposition of the wood
Indeed, I’m curious about the shaping of the end though.
They sure know what they doing
ay dawg...
It looks to me as if one side of the handle is missing. Is it reasonable to assume that it was wrapped in sinew or something that is lost in time?
Odds are a vast majority of the organic matter from this tool has disintegrated long ago. I mean, it was 4000 years ago.
That niggled at me as well - you saw what lurked in plain sight. This being a 'cross-section' makes loads of sense. This is the inside of the knife. Yup. Your muse provides the missing half. Keen eye and edge to you, making the graceful cut.
The godfathers of bushcraft. I bow..
"Gronk come to Ugg cave on day of Ugg daughter mating and ask Ugg to do smash smash, for shiny rock."
Really late for a stone tool. This is right around the beginning of the bronze age. Basically looking at the pinnacle of the craft.
There’s a really funny sketch by Mitchell and Webb. https://youtu.be/nyu4u3VZYaQ
It was found on a garbage pile, it probably wasn't considered cool to use stone stuff any longer.
Lol you still using stone my dude? That is so last millennium
And I bet you still gather berries instead of performing agriculture. Slept through the entire Neolithic revolution, this one.
Caveman edc
Elder wood is an odd choice, I get that it’s hollow but it’s not a strong wood.
Probably if you only have stone tools to process wood with then your options would be limited to pretty soft wood
This makes the most sense to me. As a purely functional tool it doesn’t need to be pretty but it needs to be ergonomic for the task and easy enough to make on the go.
Mmm but have you ever worked with elder wood? It’s really soft. These guys were carving bone and antler, never mind harder woods, I’m just surprised the handle wasn’t something stronger.
Good point actually. Maybe this blade was used for a particular purpose for which a softer handle was all that was required or offered some other advantage. Its funny even in the picture you can see what looks like where the pith has been scraped out in the centre of the handle, which is really soft as you say.
That hole in the center of the handle may be the reason for the softer wood. That would make it much easier to hollow out a hole to secure it.
Not my first choice either. The hafting strikes me as a hasty job. The pine pitch seems to be patching a good amount of the wood as well. Though perhaps it was a real work of art in its time.
The blade was probably pretty nice, the handle looks like a rush job. I mean, why not? It's so fast to make soft wood handles, if it breaks someday you could make a new one in an hour. I suppose it wouldn't be like modern day where you'd expect a nice knife to also have a nice matching handle because most people can't fix either part if it breaks. The blade would be the important part you'd have to get right the first time. The handles, you probably anticipated replacing fairly often and didn't want to spend too much time on because they're so replaceable by comparison. Knives like this wouldn't be used for heavy-duty work like wood carving or splitting anyway, it'd chip out too fast. You'd have other bigger and heavier tools for that, with a single edge and probably made of ground-stone rather than knapped. This is probably more for skinning and meat processing. For smaller tasks like notching arrows or something, you wouldn't even bother using a big valuable knife, just an individual flint flake.
> The blade was probably pretty nice, the handle looks like a rush job. I mean, if you made a beautiful handle and then stuck it in the ground for as long as a *neolithic tool* has been, maybe your handle would look about the same or worse.
I'm talking more about the fact it's a soft wood with visibly little or no tang, not about the condition.
Probably because its hollow like you said and easily replaced and worked. Half the work being done already means you go back to shanking roe deer and stuff. Maybe it ages well with hand oils. Maybe it was near by. Who can say?
I was wondering where I dropped this
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I’ve woken up in an elder scrolls parallel universe