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CHOICE NEANDERTHAL MOUSTERIAN FLINT BACKED KNIFE ON A LEVALLOIS BLADE Rock Shelter - Dordogne (Village of Plazac), France MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC PERIOD (MOUSTERIAN): 80,000 - 40,000 years ago This authentic stone tool was fashioned by Neanderthals over 40,000 years ago out of flint and discovered in the world famous region of Dordogne, France, considered to be the "Capitol of Prehistory". The site this specimen was excavated from is now closed and protected by the government. This rare artifact was legally collected with the landowner's permission decades ago before the area was sealed. Dordogne is one of the world's most famous Neanderthal regions and the fact that this archeological site is off-limits to any collecting, makes this wonderful stone tool artifact exceedingly rare and desirable! This rare Neanderthal flint tool is classified as a BACKED KNIFE ON A LEVALLOIS BLADE. It shows a cutting edge on one side with a flat back on the other. Cutting edge shows the best display of use and sharpening by its former Neanderthal owner. Mottled flint color is due to long-term exposure to a wet burial environment. It was discovered in a rock shelter with other tools and some broken fossil animal bones, mostly likely fractured for the prized marrow inside, a valuable Neanderthal food source. The blade edges are still sharp and in 'as made' condition. A superb example from this famous site! NO RESTORATION and NO REPAIR. Our fortunate purchase of a very old private collection from the original excavator allows us to offer this artifact at a price WELL BELOW ITS BOOK VALUE. The Levallois Technique was an important advance in stone tool technology for primitive humans. 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 or linear fashion. A single heavy blow at one end of the core struck the flake off and the end result was a prepared flake (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. A MASTERPIECE OF NEANDERTHAL TOOL-MAKING SKILL - CHOICE EVIDENCE OF USE AND SHARPENING SITE NOW PROTECTED AND NO COLLECTING HAS BEEN ALLOWED SINCE 1986! 1.85" in length $195 M198 INCLUDES DISPLAY BOX Actual Item - One Only |
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