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Product Description
SEE MORE NEANDERTHAL MOUSTERIAN TOOLS
With spectacular flaking and workmanship, this flint CORDIFORM biface hand axe was made in the Mousterian Tool Tradition by Neanderthals, over 40,000 years ago. It was collected from a former Neanderthal occupation site in what is now Caen (Normandy), France.
This exceptional Neanderthal hand axe is complete and devoid of any modern damage or alterations. A flake was removed from the grip end, allowing the fingers to better hold onto the hand axe in use. Overall, this hand axe displays highly skilled workmanship with expert bifacial flaking. Its beautiful, naturally glossy patina is a result of millennia of burial by the ground minerals it was once subjected to. This sheen on the surface highlights the superb prehistoric Neanderthal craftsmanship in the flint. The reduced size of these Mousterian hand axes set a new milestone of human achievement in tool technology. In contrast to the larger, cruder Acheulean hand axes made by earlier Homo erectus humans, this prehistoric prize specimen wonderfully showcases the advanced technological developments and flaking skills of the Neanderthal humans that replaced them, in Europe. Authenticity is evidenced by the lack of any modern crushing, as well as the presence of heavy patina and prehistoric minerals deep in hinge fractures, as well as all microscopic crevices.
Fine quality Mousterian Neanderthal tools are rare and often move from one private collection to the next as most sites are now depleted, destroyed, or built over. All are protected by law forbidding modern digging and private collecting. Established dealers and auction house realized prices have already shown a trend of steady price appreciation over the past decades. Over time, high grade early human Paleolithic stone tools will most definitely continue to appreciate as collector demand outpaces the finite supply circulating in the market with many collectors buying pieces and never reselling. Investment aside, no Paleolithic collection should be without representative tools of one of the most famous primitive humans in history!
Unlike their much larger predecessors of the Sahara during the Acheulian, Mousterian handaxes are much smaller in comparison. Mousterian hand axes are mostly likely considered to be the most prized tools of the Neanderthals considering the work involved to manufacture them compared to flake tools.
