Todays finds 03/21/2021 - largest axe I have found in a while

[dognose]

Rolled out to the field after talking to the property owner. i have been letting this field sit for a few months while I hunted other areas and the furrows got beat down by the weather. In the past i have hunted the other section of this field, found a number of points. The best rise now a horse pasture. I walked the rise and 15 minutes later found the axe. On the east facing side of the furrow, most of the ax was hidden from view.




A closer view


Made of slate, this is a large ax, good heft





A nicely made side notch




The days take after washing them off at the rain barrell.



This as is a handful, its amazing it has not been busted in half from the farm implements. The bit has a few dings as does the poll area.



Some light plow strike an scuffs. Shows some banged up area on the poll



A good profile





5 LBS 9.5 OZ, 8 inches from poll to bit x 5 inches wide by the groove. I was in the field for almost exactly 4 hours.

 

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[Older The Better]

That will wear your arm out swinging that thing for very long

 

[outlaws15]

Thats a big piece, way to go.

 

[Up-North]

Congrats one fine, big axe.
Rare find anywhere, these days.

 

[Tdog]

Gosh what an axe! Super find! Congrats. #5 I'd call Kirk Corner Notched.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Congrats on the Axe, lucky it survived so many plowing attacks, they destroy a lot of artifacts.

 

[villagenut]

that beauty is a real crusher. Cant axe for a better find than that

 

[dognose]

Unbroken slate celt or axes are relatively rare since the tend to break along the grain when hit by farm implements


cant get the video to post well
https://imgur.com/a/3Fr5stl

 

[H.P.]

A good hunt and excellent axe, can’t get over how huge it is.

 

[antmike915]

Excellent finds dog, wish axes like that exist in my areas. Congratulations

 

[Tnmountains]

That was a great post. Good pictures on that behemoth. Very nice find I would be stoked.

 

[newnan man]

Good day for sure. The axe is special.

 

[pepperj]

That is one big axe, and heavy. No problem seeing that one in a display. Congrats on the recovery and the nice point as well.

 

[Relicgrubber]

That axe is a day maker for sure! Congrats on your nice saves...

 

[Tony in SC]

Cool find!! That's a whooper!!

 

[erfranks]

Awesome Saves!

 

[MAMucker]

What a day! Congratulations on that monster Slate Axe Head.
I know little about hard stone tools. But it’s curious, why anyone would choose such a soft material for an axe. But, it’s a beautiful rare artifact.

 

[dognose]

In my area there is an abundance of glacial slate. Often when in the fields when I start seeing a large quantity of slate in various sizes I go slow and inspect it all.

I guess they use what they have access too.

But there is also an abundance of field stone here too.

I have many broken slate relics, axes, celts, bannerstones, gorgets. The complete slate relic are very scarce these day with the heavy equipment.

 

[Older The Better]

Just speculating but maybe it was a trade off between hardness and workability.... imagine pecking a diamond into a working edge.

 

[dognose]

workability I would think is important.

I think they put a lot of value on their tools, sometimes their lives depended on them. That idea has always made me wonder when I find a relic and think about when and how it was lost.

Here is are a few interesting slate relics. One showing a salvage attempt on the valuable tool.

This axe was broken and the broken blade area reshaped by flaking the slate, resulting in an interesting pattern not often seen on an ax blade area.

It almost looks like a ripple pattern.


Found June 25 1989, in a field close to where I live, this field gave up a number of axes, and relics from paleo to later archaic.

See how the blade was shaped back to an edge

The newly shaped bit area has not been used that I could determine, as there is no polish evident.




here is another broken slate axe, from the same field, yet not reshaped / salvaged.


Broken almost in the same basic shape as the prior.
The break taking off more into the groove area as visible in the below image.




Peck marks are still visible on the poll area on this image.



I think its about less than .05 chance that an axe is made from slate. Just an estimate based on the axes 1 have found - over 50, one in every 20 maybe made of slate. I found 10 hardstone relics in the last 12 months checking my relic catalog. These are non-projectile point relics. Only two were made of slate other than this axe. Those two were not an axe, celt or adz, but the two broken banners found 04/19/2020 - that's 20% which is considerably greater than the .05, but a shorter duration of time in the calculation and includes other than axes in the calculation.