RARE LARGER MESOLITHIC SAUVETERRIAN CULTURE FLAKE TOOLS FROM HUNTER-GATHERERS OF FRANCE *N269

Product Description

SEE MORE MESOLITHIC TOOLS AND ARTIFACTS

By the time the Mesolithic Tool Tradition arrived, the flake tools were highly advanced and achieved the peak of human tool miniaturization with the invention of the MICROBLADE.  This rare set of 12 TWELVE larger than typical flint Mesolithic micro-tools was collected from a rare former Mesolithic site in France (there are only two other known Mesolithic settlements in France!), and comes from the Sauveterrian Culture.  They were made by Western Hunter-Gatherer humans living in the region at the time. 

Each flint tool has been patinated white by the exposure to the saltwater environment for an extremely long time.  Comprising the larger specimens of the collection, various types are included in this set and each demonstrates the mastery of prehistoric human ingenuity and miniaturization of tool-making skills in the Mesolithic.   You can see the expert shaping and flaking of projectile points, microblades and tiny prismatic blades.  Microblades were the hallmark of the Mesolithic era as highly mobile hunter-gatherers in the final Ice Age, had to keep their tools and weapons small and mobile, allowing them to move with the herds they hunted that supported their survival. 

Original ground minerals and sediment are still intact in hinge fractures - an indicator ONLY seen in AUTHENTIC specimens.  This Mesolithic artifact set is a supreme example of the workmanship of a skilled HUNTER-GATHERER tool maker during Europe's final Ice Age.  

HISTORY

The Sauveterrian is the name for an archaeological culture of the European Mesolithic which flourished around 8500 to 6500 years BP. The name is derived from the type site of Sauveterre-la-Lémance in the French département of Lot-et-Garonne.

It extended through large parts of western and central Europe. Characteristic artefacts include geometric microliths and backed points on micro-blades. Woodworking tools are notably missing from Sauveterrian assemblages. There is evidence for ritual burial.

The MESOLITHIC or EPIPALEOLITHIC tool tradition describes the time between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic.  It is the final period of hunter-gatherer cultures in Europe and Western Asia, between the end of the Last Glacial Period and the Neolithic Revolution.  In Europe, it spans roughly 15,000 to 5,000 BP.  

The Mesolithic is a milestone in human history as it marks the final age of the hunter-gatherer.  The dawn of farming and widespread animal husbandry that would follow, would usher in what will be the most transformational era of Man, the ability to abandon a nomadic life to follow herds or rely on nature, ending a mobile survival-like existence, to focus on the development of civilization and city-building. 

The Mesolithic marks the highest refinement of the tool kit of the hunter-gatherer.  As humans followed and hunted herds of animals, their tools had to become as mobile as possible.  Here we have the full miniaturization of flake tools, something we saw starting to occur in the Upper Paleolithic.  The extensive use of MICROBLADES was a hallmark of the Mesolithic.  Microblade technology is a period of technological development marked by the creation and use of small stone prismatic blades which are produced by chipping silica-rich stones like chert, quartz, or obsidian.  Microblades are a specialized type of lithic flake that are at least twice as long as they are wide.  The blades were used in various tools and weapons as replaceable bladelets. 

During the final Ice Age, hunter-gatherers suffered from shortage of food resources with increased human populations and depleted wild game herds.  This required hunter-gatherers to move frequently and follow the herds they could locate.  Microblade technology was suitable for high mobility and rapid weapon production, as well as reducing failure of hunting and lost or damaged weapons.  Instead of replacing an entire tool or weapon, a microblade component could be removed and replaced, saving time and resources.  Mesolithic hunter-gatherers invested more time acquiring better raw materials and developing the technique of miniaturized and advanced lithic manufacture and weapons.