Something a little different
 

It doesn't get much more "ethnographic" than this. Anyone know what it is? It is about 4.5" long and a little under 3" wide.

Animal, vegetable or mineral? ;)

What is that, the neolithic precursor to a dha? :D

I'm trying to decide whether it's stone or copper, or whether I'm totally clueless. Any hints?

Fearn

Mineral....

You could say that. ;)

It's older than neolithic ... and from a bit to the west of a dha. :p

Chert hand axe?

A tool / axe from lump copper ? :confused:

pre-historic axe/knife ?

dino-poop?

Hide scraper

Jeff

Is it signed by Asadullah?

LOL! I think that is what Andrew was getting at in his first post.

It is an Acheulean era hand axe or chopper found along the Omo river in Ethiopia (surface find). This is the same place were the oldest dated remains of Homo sapiens have been found, recently in the news because they were re-dated to 190,000 years ago, which I think 50 or 60,000 years older than originally thought.

This piece was not even made by a modern human, but by Homo erectus, somewhere between 1.5 million to 200,000 years ago.

That was my first thought, too, but isn't it small for the type?

So...I guess that means that it's not Moro. :D

Not really, if you consider the size of Homo erectus. It fits pretty nicely in my had, so I would acutally say that it is a little big. The picture is pretty much actual size. Other examples that I have handled (my Dad picked up three in the area -- I was too busy goofing around with by high school friends to look down), were about 3 inches long. I have also seen casts of some of about that size as well.

The more I look at it, the more I think I should give it to a museum, or maybe my alma mater. Its really a priceless artifact.

Powhatan frisbee :D

Native american adze/ tool

This thread is priceless!!!!! hysterical LOL!!! :p
Laughter is truly the best medicine!!

Interesting! I had the same "It's a hand-axe, no, wait, it's too small" reaction.

Not that I'm arguing. The one hand axe I got to handle in Anthropology way back when was a bit bigger than my hand, or about twice the size of the example you've got here. It was also right handed, something I noticed as a leftie...

Yours is also missing the point that I saw on the other one.

Oh well, at least it shows that they weren't standardizing their knives even then :D

Neat blade!

Fearn

I guessed hand axe first! It's probably not chert, though. :(

My favorite response was: "So...I guess that means that it's not Moro."
Priceless!!!!
On the serious side, I keep watching as they have to keep going back and revising tool abilities and such, not only on early humans, but proto-humans and even animals.
Recent information seems to suggest that we humans may not even have a monopoly on serial killings, with the animal culprit being.....................Flipper!!!!!!
Is nothing sacred any longer?
Ooops...there goes serious.
Sorry

If you want sacred, maybe it is for circumcision. :eek:

.... and if there was a surgical mishap, this Homo would not be Erectus anymore.
Andrew, do not have your lawyerly juices getting too hot: even in Ethiopia the statue of limitations is shorter than 2 mln years.

No problem here, Ariel. Despite what doctors say, malpractice lawyers do have a sense of humor. Besides, I'm used to your bad jokes. ;)

(Now Mike, Radu and the rest... :rolleyes: ;) ).