maine adze

[mainejman]

Here is a maine adze.The damage on the butt end is from a mallet.They were said to be hafted.So they were swung and struck.

 

[mainejman]

Yes that sounds right a celt being a chopping tool.And an adze being more of a shaping tool.The whole haftem and hit them idea isnt going to work on some of these lighter materials.I believe some must have been hand held.They got different ideas of how they are hafted to the adzes.Not the angle of the bit but how it was attached to the

 

[mainejman]

Sorry dropped my phone and it sent my reply.Those are cool tools gb definetly an area specific find.Although adzes are found everywhere shell adzes arent.I suppose it had alot to do with the fauna and what they were trying to accomplish.

 

[mainejman]

Charl those are some heavy duty adzes.Makes you wonder how long it took for a bunch of them armed with gouges and adzes to crank out a 30' white pine dugout?Have you ever found one of these whetstones? I have a sharpening stone but nothing like a whetstone.The place im at now could definetly produce one though.

 

[GatorBoy]

Sorry to disagree but I'm going to.
If those were bone tool sharpening grooves they would travel off the end of the item at some point.
Imagine laying a bone tool in one of those grooves and make that mark you couldn't do it.
They would look something like this.



See how yours diminish to nothing on both ends and the use wear polish has smoothed them out.
Looks like it was almost time for another sharpening

 

[GatorBoy]

This example shows many scratches consistent with stone against



stone

 

[mainejman]

Dont think thats the case.I have many woodworking tools and none of them show any signs of grooves.whetstones were used and they wouldnt have left grooves like that.I guess im not understanding why sharpening the bit would leave grooves so far up the adze.

 

[GatorBoy]

Imagine holding a brick flat against a stone and rubbing it back and forth.
Imagine taking a rock and trying to make an adze out of it... Beyond the pecking there was going to be a lot of grinding.. And a lot more grinding as the tool needed sharpening... If a chunk of the bit broke off a whetstone was not going to fix that problem.. It would have been ground into a new bit.

 

[GatorBoy]

Just trying to lend my point of view and some of what I've come to understand over the years.
I thought you stated that you were having some confusion?
If I read nothing and saw nothing but the photo of the grooves on the bottom of that piece of stone.. Without even knowing it was a tool of any kind I could with a fairly high degree of certainty say those marks were not from bone

 

[mainejman]

I really dont know about the grooves being used for sharpening bones.But just with my own experience of finding these tools i havent seen one example of these grooves.Havent ever seen one illustrated either.So with that i just dont have much to prove why there are grooves.Either way adzes with grooves arent the norm.I have read how they are sharpened.Also i believe in some cases they discarded them if the bit was broke.And as always all opinions are appreciated.

 

[GatorBoy]

In some areas the material to make those tools came from quite a distance away.. Simply breaking a piece off the bit likely would not have led to throwing away the entire piece.
It would have been reworked.. And if needed to complete a job that had already been started it probably would have been reworked quite aggressively without much time taken to make anything look good.. Just get the bit working and get back to work.
I do quite a bit of stone work and just from personal experience when I need to remove a lot of material to shape a stone scoring it is about the quickest way to help breakdown the stone.
Happy hunting guys

 

[mainejman]

It all sounds good from here.I would say in coming up with these conclusions.Everybody had better leave room for error.When all youve got is pictures and opinions.Then having an open mind seems like the ticket.

 

[GatorBoy]

One thing beyond pictures and opinions is actually making and using stone and shell tools as they were intended back then.
Errors in people's conclusions become quite obvious very quickly when that's done