Findspot: Olduvai Gorge, CK III Exhibited: 2016-2017 08 Sep-29 Jan, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 'A History of the World in 100 Objects' Collected by: Dr Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey Catalog: 1934, 1214.1 Photo: Don Hitchcock 2017 Text: Card, http://www.britishmuseum.org/, © Trustees of the British Museum Source: Exhibition by the British Museum at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, Chopper and flake.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source: Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe Germany, Burins from the Upper Palaeolithic. Photo and text: Don Hitchcock 2014 Facsimile made by: Guy Marchessau Source: Musée dâart et dâarchéologie du Périgord, Périgueux, Each of those barbed harpoon heads is now going to flex away from the other as it hits, creating a larger wound in the process. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2014 Source: Musée dâart et dâarchéologie du Périgord, Périgueux, Denticulate tools from le Souci, probably used for meat processing like small saws. Circa 9 000 BP. Long blades (rather than flakes) appeared during the Aurignacian, or Upper Palaeolithic. Although developed more than one million years ago in Africa, the hand axe spread throughout Europe over time. The bevel on the left in this image was used to attach the point to the shaft of the dart. Original, circa 70 000 BP - 50 000 BP. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2014 Source and text: Original, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden. The original long blade was prepared by knapping suitably shaped sharp edges, then broken to form the microliths. Circa 1 800 000 BP - 1 500 000 BP. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source: Originals, Archäologisches Museum Hamburg, Germany Text: © information booklet at the Museum. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source: Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe Germany, Small blades from the Upper Palaeolithic. Regardless of type, microliths were used to form the points of hunting weapons such as spears and (in later periods) arrows and other artefacts and are found throughout Africa, Asia and Europe. Grotte d'Enlène, (Ariège), Salle du Fond, lower bed. Though I suspect you'd get away with just a rectangular piece of hide. The mammoth is seldom represented on this type of object, but is recognised easily by its general silhouette - the domed head, arched and plunging back, with its tusk, of which not all remains, with its massive legs and its broad feet, its encircled globulous eyes. Length: 12.4 cm, Tools from la Madeleine and Limeuil, Magdalenian, 13 000 BP. (this appears to be the original - Don ) Photo: © Saint-Germain-en-Laye, musée des antiquités nationales, © Direction des musées de France, 2002 Source: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/, Aurignacian, deeply carved. The centre of the object is a wide band forming a constriction. Magdalénien, flint from the anticline of Audignon.
Artefacts struck from Wittlinger chert, Bad Urach, Wittlingen, Kreis Reutlingen, about 30 km south east of Stuttgart. Dry wadi from which the handaxe above was retrieved. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source: Facimile, Monrepos Archäologisches Forschungszentrum und Museum, Neuwied, Germany. Wismar, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 11 500 BP - 7 000 BP (original) Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source and text: Monrepos Archäologisches Forschungszentrum und Museum, Neuwied, Germany, (above) Net weaver, decorated. Dolni Vestonice Jewellery, Pottery, Tools and other artifacts, Dolni Vestonice and Pavlov burials, including the triple burial, Dolni Vestonice and the Three Sisters - photographs of the area, Don's Maps - Palaeolithic / Paleolithic European, Russian and Australian Archaeology / Archeology, Egyptian Mummies, Statues, Burial Practices and Artefacts index, First Nations of the Pacific Northwest - Totem Poles, Font de Gaume - Cave Paintings from the Ice Ages, Fort de Tayac (Roc de Tayac) - a refuge from war during the Middle Ages, From the Mountains to the Sea - Point Lookout, Grass Tree Ridge and the Bellinger River, Gargas - Cave Art of the Grotte de Gargas, Gaura Chindiei - a limestone cave at the first Iron Gate of the Danube, Genyornis, an extinct giant bird from the Australian Ice Age, Golden Thread - formerly used as a herbal contraceptive and abortifacient, Golubac - a fortified medieval town on the Danube, Grassy Creek to Mulligans Hut - World Heritage Walk, Grotte de Gabillou, Grotte de Las Agnelas, Grotte de la Mouthe - a decorated cave from the Upper Paleolithic, Grotte de la Vache in the Pyrenees was home for the artists of Niaux Cave, Grotte de la Vache near Niaux - A scientific paper on its fauna and occupation by humans during the ice age, Grottes et Abris-sous-Roche Français et Espagnols, Guardian Place, Yam Camp, Shepherd Creek Secret Place, and Emu Dreaming Galleries - Aboriginal Rock Art sites in Northern Queensland, Hajducka Vodenica - a Mesolithic Iron Gates site, Hamburgian site in the Netherlands - Perdeck Collection, Heat Treatment of microcrystalline quartz, Homo Erectus - Homo Sapiens skull found in China, Homo floresiensis - the most recent living human relative, Ice Age Animals, Plants, People and Geology, Ice Age Babies from the Krems-Wachtberg site, Ice Age Maps showing the extent of the ice sheets, Ice Age hunters become farmers: Schleswig-Holstein on the way to the Neolithic, Index of the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Isturitz, Oxocelhaya and Erberua Caves, where many prehistoric flutes were found, Kebara Cave, a Middle Paleolithic Aurignacian and Mousterian site, Kimberley Points - superbly made tools from the north of Australia, Kostenki - Borshevo, ÐоÑÑенки - ÐоÑÑево region on the Don River, Russia, La Gravette, the type site for the Gravettian, La Grotte de Jolias - a Magdalenian site at Prignac-et-Marcamps, France, La Grotte du Sorcier - la Grotte du Roc Saint-Cirq, La Madeleine - a rock shelter in the Dordogne with exquisite art objects from the Magdalenian, La Micoque - a Neanderthal site in the Dordogne dating from 400 000 BP to 130 000 BP, La Quina - a Neanderthal site with thick asymmetric tools, Lagar Velho - the Hybrid Child from Portugal, Lake Mungo is the site of the oldest human remains in Australia, Lalinde / Gönnersdorf Figurines and Engravings, Laura River bed, near the Bridge - an Aboriginal Rock Art site in Northern Queensland, Le Moustier - a Neanderthal site in the Dordogne, France, Le Regourdou - one of the most important Neanderthal sites in France, Lepenski Vir - a Mesolithic site on the Iron Gates Gorge of the Danube, Lespugue Venus is a 25 000 years old ivory figurine of a nude female figure. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2014 Source: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden. The oldest known firestone. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008 Source: Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe Germany, Flint spear tips, circa 200 000 BP - 150 000 BP. Using a stone hammer, the maker has carefully struck flakes alternately from both faces around the entire edge, making it thinner at the tip and thicker and heavier at the bottom. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source and text: Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe Germany, Racloir, in jasper, from Fontmaure (Vellèches), France Middle Palaeolithic. Kartstein, Stadt Mechernich, Kreis Euskrichen Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source and text: LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn, Germany Additional text: http://www.georallye.uni-bonn.de/kartstein_bei_satzvey, Racloirs, scrapers, circa 320 000 BP, from la Micoque, France. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2014 Source: Originals, Le Musée National de Préhistoire, Les Eyzies-de-Tayac.
This is considered proof that early humans were active hunters with specialised tool kits. This broad-limb feature is for reinforcing, useful to reduce strain from the bow, keeps the string more durable and altogether increases the efficiency of the weapon. Text below adapted from http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/goto?id=OBJ1369 From the rockshelter of Montastruc, Tarn-et-Garonne, France Carved from a reindeer antler Spear throwers came into use about 18 000 years ago in western Europe. (left and centre) Andernach, obere Fundschiet, 14 000 BP - 13 000 BP - Original. From Kalambo Falls, Tanzania/Zambia border, around 300 000 BP to 200 000 BP. Grotte d'Enlène, (Ariège), Salle du Fond, Magdalénien Excavations of Sébastien Lacombe, from the collection owned by l'Association Louis Bégouën. H. Banniza, Haan, Germany.
- Don ) Rheindahlen, Stadt Mönchengladbach Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source and text: LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn, Germany, Broad quartzite handaxe, location unknown. Thanks to the surviving traces of work on equipment and intermediate goods and by practical tests of experimental archeology, we can now reconstruct the technology of the stone drill. The deep groove is from being repeatedly struck by a piece of flint to produce sparks to light a fire in tinder. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2014 Source: Musée dâart et dâarchéologie du Périgord, Périgueux, Scrapers from the Upper Palaeolithic.
Spear point, 300 000 BP - 250 000 BP, from the Belvédère loess and gravel quarry, near Maastricht, Netherlands. “I think it was a refuge used occasionally and periodically,” Ardelean said. (Gabunia, 2000) Photo: Sklenar (1988). This machine requires a hollow wooden tube, which is supplied by the Elder or Elderberry (Sambucus nigra ), which is a small tree which grows only a few metres tall and tends to grow in poor quality soil. Certainly it is fairly thick, but it is much longer than it is wide, unusual for a handaxe, and it has been beautifully finished with careful and skilled retouching on the faces and edges, in the style of a much later era. Heidenschmiede, Heidenheim, Kreis Heidenheim. Typical are the round base and the opposite point. The bows were individually matched to the body size and strength of the archer, but typically the bow was as long as the hunter was tall. 18 000 BP - 12 000 BP. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2014 Source and text: La Maison de la Dame, Brassempouy Museum Additional text: Demidenko and Usik (1993), Grattoir sur lame, a scraper on a blade. Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source: Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe Germany Text: Adapted from Wikipedia, Petersfels, Germany, ca 15 000 BP Larger blades from the Upper Palaeolithic. ( note that both these scrapers have had a flake taken out on the right, presumably for the thumb to more easily grasp the tool. Fish Hooks (left and centre) Ferchesar, Brandenburg, 11 000 BP - 8 000 BP (right) Fernewerder, Brandenburg, 11 500 BP - 7 000 BP Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source and text: Monrepos Archäologisches Forschungszentrum und Museum, Neuwied, Germany, Fish Hooks (left) Seedorf, Schleswig-Holstein, 11 500 BP - 7 500 BP (left) Seedorf, Schleswig-Holstein, 11 500 BP - 7 500 BP (right) Billeberga, Schweden, 11 500 BP - 7 500 BP Photo: Don Hitchcock 2015 Source and text: Monrepos Archäologisches Forschungszentrum und Museum, Neuwied, Germany, Net weaver, decorated.