Stone axe

The stone axe found near Jasienica (German: Jasenitz) was obtained to the Pomeranian antiquities collection in Szczecin in 1877. The then forest inspector Sotzmann from Tanowo, a member of the Society for History and Antiquities of Pomerania (Gesellschaft für Pommersche Geschichte und Alterthumskunde) donated together with two other finds discovered during forestry excavations: a stone axe from the area of Tanowo and a flint axe from the forest near Jasienica. During the construction of the Szczecin – Dobieszczyn road, the artefact was found by accident in the Leśno Górne region (German: Upper Leeser Revier) of the Wkrzańska Forest area. In the literature, this axe is described as similar to one of the variants of Middle Neolithic double-bladed specimens presented in the 1918 publication by the Swedish archaeologist Nils Åberg. He compiled north-central European finds of battle axes associated with the Nordic circle. The variety, with no symmetrical expansion of the blades and the straight body, was distinguished by the Polish researcher Konrad Jażdżewski in his monograph on the Funnel Beaker Culture published in 1936. This group also includes products where one of the ends is shaped like a blade, but it is bluntly finished and forms an elongated, slender hilt. The specimen found near Jasienica is formed like that. It differs from the double-blade type in its asymmetrical shape in the side view. In this case, it is not sure whether it is a short, atypical double-bladed axe, characteristic of the Funnel Beaker Cultures, or a specimen with a narrowed shank, whose body was significantly shortened as a result of the renewal of the blade after its wear, similar to asymmetrical battle-axes of the Late Neolithic Corded Ware culture.

Krzysztof Kowalski