Nine Pound Axe Head

[The Beep Goes On]

BigWaveDave and I met a detectorist named Danny at DS12 at the hotel and he had this beast with him. If I recall it's over 6000 years old and it weighs nine pounds. The usage or function seemed to be unknown. Maybe it's much older and was for killing dinosaurs

 

[Tesorodeoro]

If I remember some of the research books I read years ago correctly, the Native Americans used heavy stone pounders and heavy stone hammers to pulverize the buffalo bones to extract the marrow.

Single kill, maybe not a big deal, but when dealing with a dozen or more kills a lot of work there if using light weight hammers. Bulls were huge with very dense bones..

Well that was kind of my point. An 8 pound head has some extra energy. These people were not wimps. They were all muscle. A 9 pound head might have provided some “meat” for re-sharpening? Just guessing at a possibility.

 

[sprailroad]

Perhaps it was ceremonial. 9 pounds is a lot to swing for an extended period of time. But there are plenty of people around the world that swing 10 lb. sledge hammer all day.

Could not even guess how many "rail anchors" I swung a 12lb. sledge on all day long.

 

[WoodsDigger]

BigWaveDave and I met a detectorist named Danny at DS12 at the hotel and he had this beast with him. If I recall it's over 6000 years old and it weighs nine pounds. The usage or function seemed to be unknown. Maybe it's much older and was for killing dinosaurs

View attachment 2246927

What state?

 

[The Beep Goes On]

What state?

I don't recall, unfortunately.

 

[BigWaveDave]

What state?

Danny is from Rush County, Indiana. Super nice guy. I 100% believe his piece is genuine. Held it in my hands. Now admittedly NA artifacts aren’t really in my wheelhouse, but the knowledge, research, and enthusiasm that he had in the moment of his show and tell led me to believe that we should take him for his word. Found it in a field he said. There is one small imperfection from getting whacked with a plow, but I don’t know if the pic shows it.
I’ve got a pic of it too, but for some reason I cant upload it. I’ll work on it.

 

[BigWaveDave]

 

[BigWaveDave]

Sorry for the weird pic lol

 

[newnan man]

It is a really nice axe & I'm sure it's genuine. Big heavy ones like that have been found often. In the excavations at Moundsville there were several found made of copper from Wisconsin that were all 15 to 20 pounds. Giant skeletons were also found some of which had 30" + femur. That means the old boy was well overc8 feet tall.

 

[BigWaveDave]

Come to think of it, I’ve got Danny’s contact info.
I’ll reach out to him tonight, let him know his axe is trending. I doubt he’s a member on here, so if anything, he might sign up an chime in.

 

[Trezurehunter]

That thing looks like you could use it to lift weights !