Stone axe head find

[dtcmor]

A friend of mine from work brought in a stone axe head to show me. His brother found it when it came across a sorting belt for potatoes at a vegetable processing factory he works at. Lucky he knew what it was and threw it in his pocket and brought it home. The head is about 5" long with a full 3/4" groove all the way around. It is in excellent shape and the wedge end has a very sharp edge - almost as if it had been retouched or just made when lost. Another plus is that the potatoe field that it likely came from is a local farm in NW Ohio and only a short few miles from me. I hope to talk to the farmer in the next week to see if he will grant us permission to do some artifact hunting once the wintry season ends.





Thanks for looking!
Dave

[jamesp]

Never was fortunate enough to find one. Good luck on getting permission.

[tkvancil]

Freakin' cool. Hope you get in the field.

[panamark]

That is really neat. Would be interesting to know the history of it: what tribe, when, etc.

[Hard Rock Cafe]

I bet the guy who made it was bummed out when he figured out that he lost it. Lucky find!

Chuck

[gingerkid]

Very cool and the axe head is in great shape!! Do you have any idea how old it might be?

[dtcmor]

Panamark & Gingerkid - The regional tribes were Kickapoo, Erie, Wyandot, Miami and Shawnee but they were here much later than this was made. After looking in my books and online at similar styles, this axe head appears to be from the Archaic period about 2000-7000 years ago. It is a style called the iowa slant. The round shape of the hammer end and the full groove all the way around put it in this period. It's still amazing that the edge is so sharp - it makes me wonder if it was found by a modern tribe and was going to be reused. I am going to reference it with the Adena and Hopewell tribes that were here also before the modern day tribes to see if it might also have come from that era. I really hope to track down the farmer to see if we can do some hunting for other pieces like points or shards and that will give me a better idea of the time frame.

[Fossilman]

Awesome! Found a maul head (Indian) that way,when I was fossil hunting..

[pghram]

What a great find.

Rich

[quartz]

That's a real special piece, good find. Hopefully you can get in to look for more.

[dtcmor]

My friend had the axe head authenticated by a local member of the Archeaological Society of Ohio. It is indeed an Archaic piece estimated to be about 6000 years old. The man said that at one time it had been longer and had broken, and in its current shape had been resharpened with little use after, which is what I had guessed. He also mentioned that it was rare to find one in this good of shape that was grooved all the way around like this as most of them were broken from use.
My friend also found the farmer's location and name. It is only about 7 miles from my house and I will definitly be tracking him down to see if we can get permission for some artifact hunting!

[Tom]

I wish your brother missed that, I might have got it in my potato bag Very cool find!