My preciousss
In my collection of “things and stuff” I got one really nice object that usually makes people envious. It’s a shaft hole axe from Uppland in Sweden. It was my grandfather who in his youth found it on a field. The archaeological dating sets this axe to the middle or late Neolithic. Around 3000 BC perhaps. But I’m not sure on that, it’s been a while since I took archaeology and the making of shaft hole axes streches some time.
Geology-wise this axe is made of, what I think at least, some form of ordinary diabase. The weight, the archaeological practise of using diabase, it all tells me this at least. There’s no volcanoes in or near Uppland (which basically is mostly old igneous bedrock, granites at about 1800 Ma), so I dont think its basalt, but rather diabase. It could be imported/transported of course. But theres a lot of shaft hole axes found in Uppland so I dont think so.
At first, the axe was all nice and shiny black in colour, with some hints of olivine green even. But then I decided to wash it and under a thick layer of like 70 years of handling and showing to people (sounds better than 70 years of deposited human dirts and fats) and that revealed a more grayish dull stone with a hint of green tones. Theres also some redish spots that came out from under the filth which looks like rust almost. I’m not so sure any more of what this stone is made of in detail since no crystalline structure is visible because of the grinding and smoothing of the axe. Any suggestions? My guess is diabase and that the small cracks and holes are the result of erosion of more fragile plagioclase in a resistant matrix of augite and olivine.
Anyhow, depending how you look at it, its an 5000 year old axe or a 1800 million year old pice of rock. And its all mine, my sweet precious shaft hole axe…
June 12, 2008 + Posted in Mineralogy, Petrology, Archaeology +
It looks like it could have ophitic or diabasic texture, and therefore be a true diabase - but I don’t suppose you’d want to break it open to really find out!
Comment by Silver Fox — June 12, 2008 @ 2:29 pm
Silver Fox: Nooo…
Comment by Antimonite — June 12, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
It looked cooler with the black colour.
Now it looks…new.
Comment by Mikah — June 12, 2008 @ 6:34 pm
Mikah: Exactly - you know - you saw it before.
Comment by Antimonite — June 12, 2008 @ 7:34 pm
More like 4000-3000 years old. They were in use in the Late Neolithic and also Early Bronze Age.
(*scores point for annoying besser-wisser*)
Sorry, just so very, very jealous. Lovely example. Do you have any note on exactly where your grandfather found it, which part of Uppland? As you say, they are quite common, but Per Lekberg showed in his dissertation a few years back that there are several things to be learnt from them, depending on their length and spot in the landscape. Some were deposited as offerings, some were placed in burials, and some were left on settlements.
The fact that your axe is complete suggests it might not be a settlement find. Most axes deposited in burials are up to 12,5 cm - longer ones are more often deposited as offerings.
Personally I have a few mesolithic flint axes from Tågerup, Skåne, liberated from the huge dumped masses of topsoil. Not as pretty as uplandic diabase though…
Comment by ArchAsa — June 13, 2008 @ 8:15 am
ArchAsa: Thanks for the date-correction. Remembering dates never where my strong side in archaeology. No besser-wisser-offence taken at all.
I think its impossible to give an exact location for the axe since my grandfather is dead since many years. Not more than a guess from my part that it should have been somewhere around his farm in Biskopskulla. (a village near Örsundsbro, famous for their immigrants to America and the settlement there called Bishop Hill).
This is a place I havent visited for many years. But I do remeber there was some (pre)historical stuff there in the vicinity, a rune stone (or a menhir perhaps - cant remember any ingravings), cant really remember - since I was like 7 years old the last time I was there.
Comment by Antimonite — June 13, 2008 @ 9:24 am
A really nice little artefact indeed. We also have a stone-age axe, a quite small flint axe found by a friend of my grandfather (belive it or not!), and it’s dated to roughly the same age as yours (don’t know the exact date but it’s supposed to be neolithic). The axe is appearantly a piece from a once larger axe that was broken off and reworked into a neat “hand axe”.
Comment by Djingis — June 14, 2008 @ 7:38 pm
I’m nowhere near being a geologist but that’s pretty darn cool. May it last another 5000 years.
Comment by CJ — June 22, 2008 @ 5:16 am