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Description: | A crude pick, knapped from high-quality brown stained flint. The artefact is of the type known as a ?Thames pick? but it could be a tranchet axe.
The artefact is fairly long and narrow with a rough diamond-shaped cross-section. One of the terminals has been knapped into a two facetted rounded blade, forming the tranchet style axe terminal, although this feature could be also be reminiscent of a Thames Pick. The other terminal is rounded, forming the butt end of the pick or axe.
The piece is slightly curved in its length. The flake scars are large and crude, perhaps indicating that this artefact was made very quickly.
A large number of small flakes have been awkwardly removed by pounding to blunt the sharp edges- possibly to enable the tool to be held without cutting the user?s hand. No attempt has been made to neaten the appearance of the tool, beyond the minimum requirements for making it safe to hold.
The rough nature of the tool suggests that it was used for cutting into stone, or some other similarly hard medium since woodworking would never require such a crude edge. The tool dates from the Mesolithic period. | Format: | text/html | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ | Publisher: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Rights holder: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Subjects: | archaeology | Temporal: | -8300
-3500 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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