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TEXTBOOK PERFECT NEANDERTHAL FLINT FLAKE SCRAPER ON LEVALLOIS FLAKE OF GEM-GRADE GRAND PRESSIGNY FLINT Le Grand-Pressigny - Southern Touraine, France MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC PERIOD (MOUSTERIAN): 80,000 - 40,000 years ago This very rare stone tool was fashioned by Neanderthals over 40,000 years ago out of golden honey-toned flint from the well-known prehistoric site of Le Grand Pressigny in France. It was also subsequently collected from this region having been flaked and used by Neanderthal humans who once inhabited the region. For an extensive history that dates all the way back to the Acheulian Period in Europe, flint was collected from deposits in Le Grand-Pressigny in Southern Touraine, France. In the Neolithic Period, large mines were dug and worked here with the flint being traded far distances away. The flint is unmistakable in its appearance - a rich golden yellow tone with slight translucence. The entire prehistoric site of Le Grand Pressigny is scientifically important and was one of the most active epicenters of trade and habitation for an extraordinary length of time in human prehistory. This rare artifact was legally collected with the landowner's permission decades ago and resided in the private collection of the original excavator until our acquisition of it. This is truly one of the nicest and most classic Neanderthal flint flake tools we could possibly offer. It is definitely a tough one to part with! The entire tool is the most perfect and classic example of a Neanderthal Levallois flake tool one could ask for. Its provenance and lithic is of equally historic importance - Le Grand Pressigny! The flint is of a very heavily patinated and translucent rich golden glow. Wonderful natural soil sheen from burial for thousands of years makes for a lustrous surface. All human made retouching and forming flakes are intact with NO damage. This is a combination side and end scraper. NO RESTORATION, REPAIR OR MODERN DAMAGE. Way below Overstreet's 2001 year price guide! A superb and highly recommended example of the finest Neanderthal early technology and skill! Genuine MOUSTERIAN tools from the Le Grand Pressigny are seldom available for public sale and represent an excellent opportunity to acquire both an archaeologically important as well as a highly aesthetic genuine stone tool specimen from the most misunderstood (and formerly scientifically maligned!) primitive humans - NEANDERTHALS! The technique used to make this flake is called the Levallois Technique. This method of flake manufacture was first employed in the Acheulian Era about 250,000 years ago by archaic Homo sapiens but perfected in the Middle Paleolithic Era by Neanderthals. It consists of starting with a core of stone and using heavy percussion hammering on one side to remove large flakes in a radial fashion, creating a "turtle-back" profile on one side of the core. A single heavy blow at one end of the core struck the flake off and the end result was a prepared flake (a la Levallois) with a convex shape on one side (from initial flake removal when still attached to the core) and a flat side on the other (from the side split off the remaining core). Edges of this struck flake were then retouched to create the desired cutting edge but the geometry of the two sides remained. It was the Levallois method employed by Neanderthals to manufacture a variety of early tools including the first points that were hafted to wooden poles for use as spears. The MOUSTERIAN tool tradition gets its name from artifacts discovered at a primitive rock shelter named Le Moustier located in southwestern France. Compared to the bulkier tools of the Acheulian produced by the Levallois technique, Mousterian tools are comprised of smaller flakes from an exhaustively worked core which are then retouched on the edges to make a large variety of tools. These tools are not only smaller than Acheulian specimens, but they are more specialized for their various tasks. Mousterian tools can be broadly put into four classes: 1) SAWS (Denticulate Tools) and KNIVES, 2) SCRAPERS 3) BORERS 4) HANDAXES, CHOPPERS and CLEAVERS. Mousterian tool-makers were the primitive humans knows as the NEANDERTHALS. Neanderthals had massive skeletons and teeth, flat foreheads and heavy brow ridges. Their skulls were larger than a modern man and contained an average brain capacity of 1500 cc, averaging slightly larger than humans of today. FINEST POSSIBLE NEANDERTHAL LEVALLOIS FLAKE TOOL - GEM MATERIAL AND COLOR! 2.25" in length SOLD M095 INCLUDES DISPLAY BOX Actual Item - One Only |
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