Core axe

The core flake axe from Złocieniec in the Drawsko district was discovered in unclear circumstances. Under the same number of the pre-war museum inventory, there are also other flint monuments, mostly dated to the Ahrensburg culture and the Middle Maglemose culture. They appear to have come from research at a single site in or near the town, carried out before 1934. It was made of chalk flint. It is covered with a reddish-orange patina, which results from its being deposited in an iron-rich environment. The basic technique used to produce the flake axe was directly striking the lump of flint with a stone pestle. From experimental studies, it seems that this was a relatively soft and rather small pestle, for example, made of sandstone. The precision of the blows and the good planning of subsequent operations indicate the high skill and knowledge of the maker. Flake axes are multifunctional tools. It is usually assumed that they were used for working wood, but the range of work they performed was much broader. Depending on how it was mounted on a handle or in a holder, the same object could be used as an axe, blowtorch, chisel, planchet, hoe, pick or pickaxe. The versatility of tools was a great advantage from the point of view of hunter-gathering communities. Due to their high mobility, they tried to limit the number of carried items, which is where the tendency to create multifunctional tools, especially the largest ones used for various heavy works, probably came from. The core flake axe from Złocieniec is generally dated to the Mesolithic, ca. 9600-5400 BC.

Michał Adamczyk