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Product Description
This EXCEPTIONAL genuine European Neolithic flake tool was collected from an Early Neolithic Period settlement site in Denmark, once inhabited by people of the Funnel-Necked Beaker Pottery Culture of Northern Europe. It was fashioned out of flint and used between 6300 and 4800 years ago. Unlike most surface collected flake tools of Neolithic cultures, this example is perfect and complete without any modern damage. It is far nicer than the typical buckets of ordinary flake tools often collected in the past. Very rarely are European Neolithic flake tools found that are as nice as this superb specimen.
This flake tool is classified as an AWL, DRILL, or BORER. It is a unique and ingenious DOUBLE TOOL design with two styles of boring awl points flaked at opposing ends of the tool. One is thinner than the other making this borer suitable for heavy tasks, and also tasks that require a more refined hole to be drilled with the opposite point of the same flake tool. Awls were used to pierce, drill and ream materials such as animal hide, wood, bone and ivory. Hides were used for a variety of purposes such as clothing, satchels and shelter coverings. Awls were also used to drill and ream into harder organic substances to make other tools or even art. This flake tool shows evidence of use and delicate secondary flaking to form the point and shape the sides. As originally made and INTACT.
Original ground minerals and sediment are still intact in hinge fractures - an indicator ONLY seen in AUTHENTIC specimens. This fine Danish Neolithic flake tool is a supreme example of the workmanship of a skilled tool maker from the earliest of northern Europe's farming society. Genuine tools from the Funnel-Necked Beaker Pottery Culture are seldom available for public sale and represent an excellent opportunity to acquire a genuine stone tool artifact from some of the world's first farming peoples!
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HISTORY
The earliest food-producing communities of Northern Europe belonged to the Funnel-Necked Beaker Pottery Culture. This culture existed from 4300 BC to 2800 BC, in the Northern-most region of western Europe. The pottery produced by these earliest farmers had a distinctive necked design. The first use of the PLOW, ANIMAL TRACTION and WHEELED TRANSPORT in north-central Europe is attributed to this Neolithic culture. Megalithic chambered tombs were employed and built into long mounds. These mounds made by the Funnel-Necked Beaker peoples still stand today in many parts of north Europe.
Farming in northern and central Europe differed from that of the more temperate southern regions of Europe, the Middle East and north Africa. The harsh winters required crops to be sown in the Spring as opposed to the Fall for the latter. Woodland grazing in the north meant more emphasis on the raising of cattle and pigs compared to the herds of sheep and goats popular in the south.
Neolithic settlements were typically small in population with only about forty to sixty people. The wooden longhouse was the main type of building which housed both people and their livestock. Postholes are all that remain today leaving burials and ritual stone structures as the only remnants of this period. Neolithic burials were either individual or communal. The communal burials were housed in large megalithic structures which were then covered with earth creating a giant mound. Offerings of stone tools, pottery and ornaments were often included in burials.
The Neolithic people of the Funnel-Necked Beaker Pottery Culture represented the first farming and stock-herding society in Northern Europe.