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Details
LOT 0274
Stone Age Pierced Battle Axe-Hammer
3RD-2ND MILLENNIUM B.C.
7 1/8 in. (921 grams, 18 cm).
With rounded butt and convex sides, pierced for attachment to the handle.
Provenance
Found near Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK, by the vendor's father.
Property of a Suffolk lady.
Literature
Cf. MacGregor, A., Antiquities from Europe and the Near East in the collection of the Lord McAlpine of West Green, Ashmolean Museum, 1987, nos.6.17-6.21, for the type.
Footnotes
Axe-hammers like this one were used in felling trees to create fields from the natural woodland, and in shaping timber for building. The great number of stone axes and axe-hammers from Nordic European areas are a measure of how densely populated some parts of the Europe had become by five thousand years ago.
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