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Description: | A late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age stone axe/adze/mace. The entire original surface has been polished smooth. The object is broken across an hour-glass shaped socket, and only approximately half of the axe now remains. It is made from a charcoal coloured material, probably granite. The axe would have been roughly oval in plan. In section is lozenge shaped, with the base having a shallower convex profile than the upper surface. Longitudinal striations are visible on the interior of the socket. Length 83mm, width 69mm, thickness 36mm. Width of socket tapers from 25mm at the surface to 12mm at the middle.The following comments are kindly provided by Graham Lott of the British Geological Survey:The stone is a dense, coarse grained, mafic (dark coloured) igneous rock - probably either a PERIDOTITE or a DIORITEMineralogically, it appears to contain the dark coloured silicate minerals hornblende, pyroxene and possibly some olivine, together with paler grey feldspar.We would need to cut a thin section to give you more precise information.These rock type are not that common in the UK. Diorites are found in both northern Scotland and Scandinavia, however, peridotite is more likely to be of a Scandinavian origin (although there is a peridotite intrusion in the Channel Islands just to complicate matters) . However, both lithologies can also be found as boulders in the glacial deposits of Eastern England. This gives us a number of options - the stone could have been worked at source in Scotland or Scandinavian (possibly the Channel Isles) and transported to Lincolnshire or it could have been found as a local glacial boulder and worked in situ in England.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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