Read the Danish version of this article at videnskab.Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacksĬondition Immunities charmed, frightened, poisoned This article is reproduced on this site by kind permission of Skalk, a Danish periodical with articles about Danish prehistoric and medieval archaeology, history and related topics. This is an unusual discovery because axes and adzes made from red deer and elk antlers were rarely decorated in the early Maglemose. On this basis, we estimate the elk-antler prong adze to be around 10,000 years old. The last time an axe like this was found was at Lundby Mose, where it was lying next to an elk skeleton. A few Scanian pieces have been dated to the Preboreal, and numerous elk-antler prong adzes, including one with part of the handle preserved, have been found in the contemporary English settlement of Star Carr. Whereas the decorations on the adze cannot be dated more accurately than to the Mesolithic Era, the type of the adze tells us a bit more. This pattern has only been seen before on a bone knife from Sollerön in Sweden. What’s even more unusual is the adze’s two vertical lines bordering diagonal line bundles with alternating orientation. We only know such patterns from five other objects from the Maglemose Culture: a nodule of flint, an amber pendant, a metacarpal bone from an aurochs, a piece of an antler of a stag and an elk-antler prong pickaxe. Our studies show that the decoration may originally have been a line that was connected with triangles. This line is likely to have connected the tips of the zig-zag band. We saw several engraved lines, and during our RTI modelling, we noticed faint traces of a vertical line that had almost worn off. Other decorations appeared in a new light, too. These are marks from manufacture, probably created by cuts from a small flake axe. When we adjusted the lighting on the elk-antler prong adze, small scale-shaped grooves became visible along one of its sides. The lighting can then be adjusted on the screen. The new method enables us to create a computer-generated model, which generates an interactive re-lighting of an object’s surface. Re-angle the light, and other parts of a pattern may emerge.Ī new digital photography method called Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) makes it possible to save and review images an object with all the lighting angles characteristic of a physical presence. If the light falls in one direction, certain parts of a pattern are highlighted, while others will be fainter or even invisible. The angle and the strength of the lighting have a bearing on what is visible on the surface. Due to a restructuring of the museum’s antiquities collection, the adze was moved, and suddenly a carved zig-zag band was revealed. The fact that we haven’t noticed the patterns on the elk-antler prong adzeuntil now could be due to the lighting conditions where it has been exhibited. So it’s possible that this adze has been found at a peat-digging near the settlement or elsewhere in the bog, which – as we now know – also contains an older (Preboreal) settlement.Ĭhanging lighting conditions led to the discovery The adze may have been found at this excavation, but these settlements are dated to slightly later than the elk axes. In 1922-23, archaeologists examined more than 1,600 square metres of a settlement from the Maglemose Culture at Holmegårds Mose. This prompted us to take a closer look at the origin of the adze.Ī document from the early 1900s mentions that the adze, along with four flint cores and several flint tools and flakes “most likely … originates from the well-known settlement of Holmegårds Mose, which was excavated by archaeologists at the National Museum of Denmark." Yet it wasn’t until last year that we noticed that the adze is ornamented. Many visitors at the museum have seen the adze in the exhibition case, including a number of professionals, quite a few of whom have even held it in their hands. The adze is broken at the shaft hole, i.e. The almost 14-centimetre long adze is made from an elk’s large prong, which is taken from the broad branch of the antler that sticks out of the skull.Īn inclined chipping of the prong has created an edge, which has several marks from use, while an oval shaft hole has been drilled into the flatter part of the prong from both sides. One of these is an elk-antler prong adze, which has been on exhibition at Økomuseum Samsø in Denmark since the 1960s.
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