EXTREMELY RARE AFRICAN NEOLITHIC STONE GRINDING BOWL MILL SET FROM THE CAPSIAN CULTURE *CAPX1

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This INCREDIBLY RARE large stone grinding mill bowl is the only example we have ever seen or know of from the African Capsian Neolithic Culture.  Unlike the breath-taking large mills in vesicular basalt of the African Tenerian Neolithic, found lower in the south central Sahara Desert, the northern Sahara Capsian never really produced any impressive grain grinding mills other than mostly flat slab examples.  While we have seen an abundance of fakes, never have we seen an authentic example as this in all our extensive past travels to the northern Sahara.  What is truly impressive is that this bowl was pecked and ground out of a solid block of rock.  The bulbous, turtle-shaped underside is completely pecked with some grinding on the bottom to shape the oblong bowl form.  The inside is ground smooth from extensive ancient use.  The rim shows all original shaping by nibbling the stone edge.  Since the walls of the bowl flare up from a heavy base to a thin rim, this method was likely chosen instead of grinding the rim smooth, to avoid breakage.  The original rough rim and the deep pock-marked underside surface from the pecked shaping, make for an incredible aesthetic to this rare piece!

The double tapered end pestle rubbing stone also shows expert shaping with not only a perfect form and symmetry, but each of the ends was ground flat to maintain its own wonderful aesthetic.  This rubbing stone shows superb pecking and use wear with no damage.  It would have been held in one hand and oriented in the bowl in the same direction as the bowl length, grinding grain in a circular motion.  This is an essential centerpiece of any collection of this Neolithic culture as this is what the Neolithic was all about - PREPARING food from cultivated / domesticated crops instead of relying on gathering naturally-occurring plants for food. 

WITH OUR HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION! Perfect to display amidst other tools and weapons of this period! This NEOLITHIC OF CAPSIAN TRADITION artifact was found on an exposed African Neolithic site in the Sahara Desert in Northwest Africa.  It was made and used by Neolithic humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) from the time of 8000 B.C to 2700 B.C..

WARNING:  Authentic large African Neolithic mills have become terribly rare in today's market.  Their large size have made them easy to spot by nomads and all of the Northern Sahara has been picked clean of these Neolithic mills over the past 20 years.  In auctions, online sellers, shows and Ebay, fakes dominate the market.  In our travels to North Africa as far back as 15 years ago, we saw a tremendous quantity of convincing fakes being produced for the collector market.  One way to tell is to wash the mill off with liquid dish wasing soap, hot water and a scrub brush.  True mills with thousands of years of impacted sediment, wind erosion and mineral encrustations, will be impossible to scrub clean and under magnification, will have deep MICROSCOPIC crevices stained and impacted with minerals.  Fakes will not have this.  The sheer number of fake stone tools being produced in Morocco, Mali, Mauritania and Algeria, for example, is staggering, and this junk routinely makes its way to the market every year.