Wooden Handle Found Intact on 5,500-Year-Old Stone Ax

[jakeXT]

An archaeological survey of sites for an undersea tunnel project in southern Denmark has turned up a stunning find: a 5,500-year-old stone ax with the wooden handle still intact. The ax was found embedded in a layer of clay that preserved the wood over the millennia, said archeologists with the Museum Lolland-Falster. Søren Anker Sørensen, an archaeologist at the museum, said in a press release that the excavation also uncovered a paddle, two bows and 14 ax shafts, jammed into the ground as part of a ritual offering at what was the sea’s edge during the Stone Age. “When we suddenly realized that we had actually found most of a complete hafted ax, stuck 30 cm (11.8 inches) down into the seabed, we knew that this was a very special find," he said.

The museum said the discovery showed the importance of the coast for ritual offerings during the Stone Age. Surveys associated with the tunnel project also turned up the first Stone Age footprints ever found in Denmark. The site where the ax was found is east of Rodbyhavn, a ferry port on the southern coast of Lolland, the southernmost of Denmark’s large islands. The new tunnel for trains and automobiles would provide quicker access from Germany to Lolland and to other parts of Denmark and Sweden.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/wooden-handle-found-intact-5-500-year-old-stone-ax-n256226

[Botany]

1. i was womdering where I left that ax

[jakeXT]

2. Do you still have the receipt ? I guess it's broken /nt

[shenmue]

3. I hate shoddy workmanship

You can't get good axes these days.

[jakeXT]

4. What would they think of our axes ? "no real flintstone = rip-off " /nt

[louis-t]

5. If it's a Craftsman, they'll exchange it.

I will never forget my father telling me to take a broken screwdriver back to Sears when I was a teenager. I said "Dad, this thing looks like it came over on the Mayflower." I was embarrassed to take it in, but they exchanged it.

[hobbit709]

6. Did it belong to Eugene?

[pansypoo53219]

7. very cool. why i collect old wood kitchen tools + old tools.

[Hoppy]

8. I understand the handle had a barcode and the initials "H D"

[BlueJazz]

9. 5,500 years? I wonder...could it be Adam's ax ?

[MisterP]

10. surely you mean Enoch the Older, or Irad? it's not 6,000 years

[BlueJazz]

11. True, but I thought people back in those days lived hundreds of years.

[htuttle]

12. That looks like my grandfather's axe

If I replace the handle, and maybe the head, it will be as good as new.