Stone ax: first axes, use, photo

In different territories of the earth the transition from stone axes to axes of metal occurred at different times. But even now there are places in which non-metallic guns are used up to now. In general, this can be observed in African and Australian tribes with a preserved primitive communal way of life.

Stone ax in the life of ancient people

The first tools of the ancient people were made of stone.
Initially, they were merely simple devices that only facilitated labor. People in ancient times were looking for strong stones (mostly pebbles and silicon) with the sharpest edges and used them in everyday life. Then they learned how to process, split, crush and even grind (in the Paleolithic).

The first stone axes (rather hand-chopped) of ancient people - a universal tool of labor. With the help of the ancient man , certain works were performed, when the point was necessary, and strong and lasting.

For such weapons, primitive people found quite massive stones (about 1 kg in weight) 10-20 centimeters in length, they were clamped with some other, also solid, stone, pointing downwards, and rounding off from above, so that it would be convenient to hold them with hands.

How did the stone ax work? People chopped the chopper, struck at the hunt, cut everything that suited him.

Due to the fact that the people's hands were still imperfect, the shape of the turned instrument basically depended on the size of the originally found stone.

Perfection of forms of tools

People in the process of life gradually improved their tools. The stone ax increasingly took the form of a tool and became an instrument not so universal, and used only for certain purposes.

A new tool, a sharp point, was already used to hunt animals. A scraper was used by women in ripping off the skins of animals killed by men. The work with this tool was more often performed by women. So the first female stone tool of labor appeared.

Combat Stone Axes

Only during the Neolithic Age (late Stone Age) with the process of increasing the skill of people in terms of stone processing began to arise combat types of axes. The size of the hatchet was small, especially for the possibility of fighting with one hand (length - 60-80 cm, weight - 1-3.5 kg).

Such axes, made of obsidian blade, were also found in the American continent among the indigenous inhabitants of these places (the period of Spanish colonization).

Stone ax: photo, development history

The oldest tools, found in our time, were created approximately 2.5 million years ago. As already mentioned above, the first tool of the ancient person (the chisel) was an ordinary stone with one sharp edge.

In the following, the process of making an ax or any other stone item occurred approximately like this: 1 piece of flint was fixed, and another was used instead of a hammer with which the excess parts were cut off from the stone, and thus the corresponding form was given to the manufactured tool of labor. Then people learned to polish and polish these products.

However, there was one problem. Stone tools quickly crumbled, and in connection with this, their frequent replacement was required.

Over time, the next important step was the unification of the stick and chop into a single instrument. So it turned out a stone ax. The plus of this tool is that the additional lever greatly increased the impact force, and work with it became more convenient.

The ways of fastening the handle and the cutting part were very different: a bandage was used in the split handle, a rubber resin was used, or the working part of the tool was simply driven into a strong massive handle.

It was made from flint, obsidian and other hard rocks.

In the later Stone Age (Neolithic), the axes were already made with a hole for the handle (with a lug).

The stone ax began to disappear in the territories of modern Europe, when bronze products began to appear (starting from the 2nd millennium BC). Despite this, the stone, due to the cheapness, existed quite a long time in parallel with the metal ones.

Difficulties in making a stone ax

The very first axes, having a similarity to the modern ones, appeared in the Mesolithic period (about 6,000 years BC).

How to make a stone ax made of stone? This was a complex engineering task for primitive people - the combination of two elements of the ax.

Even if the holes in the stone could already be made, in this case the thickness of the "blade" of the stone ax increased, and it turned into a hammer or cleaver, with which it was possible only to crush the wood fibers, and not cut them. In this connection, the ax with the ax was simply connected together with the help of veins or skin of various animals.

Only people learned to melt metal, they immediately began to make copper axes. But the "blades" themselves continued to be made for a long time in an old way (from stone), because the shale and flint surfaces allowed to sharpen surprisingly sharp products. And the eye was made in the ax handle.

Finally

If you think about it, many centuries ago this simplest and at the same time amazing subject was not just an instrument of labor for primitive people or an instrument, but also a symbol of greatness and power. Stone axes are the most valuable items of the time, made by the hands of ancient people, which laid the foundation for the creation of a modern ax.