A nice Neolithic hand axe measuring 136mm displays great preservation exhibiting an attractive palate of colours within the chert stone. Perhaps once a prized possession to one of our ancestors, captivated by the colours as much as we are today.

Prehistoric Neolithic (new stone age), hand axe of excellent manufacture by an ancient hand, the chert is very attractively coloured in dark creams with banding near the distal cutting edge. The stone had been knapped-flaked to form comfort in the hand. The hand axe is in an excellent state of preservation, complete, unbroken, and a very beautiful stone age artefact.

Some tools were used in the hand and some were set into wooden shafts and it is thought for use in feuds or skirmishes as a weapon. These adze or axes probably were a multi-purpose tool. Used to dig up plant tuba roots, be hand-drawn or shafted, the first multi-too. A typical African Neolithic stone age work from the region of the ténéré (Southern Sahara) desert, this hand axe was collected along the Touareg Mali and Niger ténéré old routes and encampments.

The Neolithic New Stone Age is defined by Neanderthals developing agriculture into their way of life, the lifestyle of the nomadic hunter-gatherer era was coming to an end. This occurred before 40,000 BCE which approximately marks the extinction of Neanderthals, the progressive advancements in farming, possibly in Britain was the first time livestock crossed the dry land-lock, which today is the Channel and on arriving in England influenced a more domestic lifestyle. The Neolithic age was the progression of behavioural and cultural characteristics, including the use of wild and domestic crops and animals, in this process, the technical skills of stone tools leapt forward.

In the United Kingdom, men are descended from early farmers who migrated across Europe from the Near East around 10,000 years ago. Ancient farmers left their genetic mark on modern times by breeding more successfully than indigenous hunter-gatherers as they migrated into the West. Living in the Fertile Crescent is the crescent-shaped geological area stretching from Egypt to the Persian Gulf, East of the Mediterranean Sea, where the land was more fertile and crops were more successfully grown.

Type: Neolithic hand axe
Age: Neolithic, Capsian culture, 8,500 to 6,500 BC
Origin: Northern Sahara Desert, Morocco, North Africa

Axe: L: 13.6 CM / W: 5.2 CM / D: 3.5 CM / KG: 0.317