Product Description
We have been obsessively collecting the finest African Neolithic Capsian arrowheads for over 20 years and this specimen comes from a small, select group we have been holding onto for the duration of over two decades. We have been to the source in the Sahara, scoured literal buckets and barrels of tens of thousands of arrowheads each year, for many years. Over the past decades, we have also purchased top-shelf private collections in America and Europe. In all this time, we would set aside the RAREST OF THE RAREST arrowheads of this Neolithic culture, and it is now time for us to sell some from this private, ultra-rare stash. The collection is small and limited. Each item represents the highest degree of workmanship that we have ever seen. This is one of those precious specimens from those efforts. Most of the sites where arrowheads like this were once found, have now been entirely picked clean for the last decade.
This type of Capsian Neolithic projectile point is THE RAREST OF ALL KNOWN TYPES. It is called an OFFSET BARBED HARPOON arrowhead. This is one of only THREE examples we have ever seen and this is the largest of those three. This type is not illustrated or described in J. Desmond Clark African Prehistory publications, nor has any example ever been shown in Duncan Caldwell's Old World section of any issue in the Overstreet's Arrowhead Price Guide.
This projectile point never started as a conventional shape and was altered - it originated with the offset form. Both sides show exquisite secondary retouch to define the shape, and prehistoric patina and ancient mineral deposits on all surfaces and in all micro-crevices. The tang is a large offset base with a defined barb on one side. While it is now desert environment where the Capsian Neolithic people used to live, in their time it was a fertile lake region with abundant fish and other aquatic life such as amphibians and reptiles. While these lakes were an important source of food, the majority of projectile points used must have been normal symmetrical forms as these offset types are virtually, non-existent. Again, this is not a broken arrowhead that has been re-purposed in ancient times, the design is original and obvious in its extreme offset form.
If your efforts are to have the rarest and best pieces in your collection, this offering is one that you will likely never see again so the opportunity speaks for itself!
The original mineral deposits and patina are intact and deep in the flake hinge fractures and micro-crevices - traits ONLY found in AUTHENTIC specimens.
CAPSIAN TRADITION arrowheads have been found on exposed African Neolithic sites in the Sahara Desert in Northwest Africa. They were made by African Neolithic humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) between 10,000 and 4,700 years ago.