Miniature axe blade from the Neolithic period, 5000-3000 BC.
Stone.
Provenance: collection Bengt Söderbergh (1925-2019), Swedish translator and novelist based in Cannes, France.
Intact.
Measurements: 4 x 2 x 1 cm.
An axe blade from the Neolithic period, carved from a single block of stone, with a wide body and flattened tip, used for cutting, tanning hides, digging, etc. The archaeological discovery of stone tools is a clear sign of human activity and progress. During the Neolithic period, the stone industry reached a high degree of skill and evolution (in fact, the very name "Neolithic" -new stone- responds to a new way of working stone, which will be polished as opposed to the carved stone of the Palaeolithic, a change that represented a real technological revolution). During the Neolithic, axes, sickles and hoes such as the one we are now presenting began to be made, which helped in agricultural and livestock farming processes and to dominate the environment. As a result, peasant populations secured their livelihoods and were thus able to become sedentary.
The organisation and way of life of primitive people can be known through knowledge of the tools they used. While the study of the tools used during the Palaeolithic allows us to know that they practised gathering, fishing and hunting, the progressive appearance of more complex lithic industries is interpreted in parallel with the birth of farming and stockbreeding societies.