this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
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Historical Artifacts

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Just a community for everyone to share artifacts, reconstructions, or replicas for the historically-inclined to admire!

Generally, an artifact should be 100+ years old, but this is a flexible requirement if you find something rare and suitably linked to an era of history, not a strict rule. Anything over 100 is fair game regardless of rarity.

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This flint axe was found in 1912 in West Tofts, a now-abandoned village in the UK between Cambridge and Norwich, It was made by a Homo heidelbergensis or possibly a Neanderthal, somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 years ago.

This kind of tool is fairly common throughout western Europe and Africa, but this specimen is unique for having a Cretaceous-era fossil of a spiny oyster in the centre that suggests the axe's maker wanted the shell on it as an adornment.

It's kept in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and you can see more details on their web site.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

That's awesome! I bet you could trade one of these bad boys for an entire atlatl set

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I found a tool like this made from a different type of rock on a beach in Florida when I was 11. It was in the wall of an eroded dune. I still have it today, 37 years later.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Like this meaning it has a preserved fossil? Or like this meaning a hand axe?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

The hand axe. Here's a photo. Also, I did specify "tool" and not "fossil."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

A picture is what I was hoping for - thank you! That is gorgeous. Interesting that it's much flatter on that one edge.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

It's almost ergonomic, which makes sense. Crazy to me that I never lost it; I used to keep it in my glove box as a lucky charm. Now it's at home on a shelf.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

they didn't know this was art when they shaped this, they just knew it was pleasing to create, and that my friends, is the very essence of art

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I disagree, humans have always been creative, curious, passionate, intelligent, and all of the ideals that make humanity great. Function with artistic form has been integral to all human creations. It's the same reason we etch art into PCBs, because we love our creations and want it to be special to us

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think you're both saying the same thing - "art" is not that which has magazines for it and museums built around it and so on, but rather the experience of it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

We very well could be. The person that made this clearly didn't make it to any expectations to what art is "supposed" to be

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If they did that'd be fascinating to know!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Acheuluean knappers: we're gonna launder so much money

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

They may well have found it artistic. Many tools even today are made with design in mind