"Can You Cut Down A Tree With A Stone Axe?" Topic

Somewhere I've read that the 'polished stone axe' is one marker for neolithic technology.

Yesterday I saw big a polished stone axe-head on display in a local antique shop – no doubt looted by some pot-hunter from a local grave mound. It was beautiful and I coveted it, but I decided not to buy, because I don't need an angry ghost haunting me for stealing his grave goods. Not that I'm superstitious or anything.

But even though it was beautiful, I saw something that I've noticed before in photos and museum specimens – the 'cutting' edge was very blunt, rounded really. I wondered. What good would this tool be for cutting down a tree, or splitting wood?

I know there are some prehistoric re-enactors, and experimental archaeologists on this board, as well as a lot of guys with opinions. What's your take on the question – can you cut down a tree with a blunt, polished stone axe?

If not, why would an artifact that is so labor-intensive to produce, be so common in the archaeological record? Did neolithic men just have lots and lots of time on their hands, and nothing to do but polish rocks?

Or is the big polished stone axe a weapon of war? I know that woodland Indian warriors used wooden or hide shields and wooden or hide armor that were very effective protection against stone-pointed arrows and lances, and wooden or small stone-headed war-clubs. I haven't tested the idea, but it seems that a big, heavy stone axe-head would smash up wooden shields and armor, and anybody sheltering behind them.

Thoughts?

I have never bought into the idea that the polished stone axe was a woodcutting tool. It always seemed like a weapon to me. My personal opinion is that a sharp-edged stone axe blade used to cut down trees would probably disintegrate during use, possibly requiring many if them to cut down larger trees.

I love all the videos on this site. Might not be a "polished stone axe" but cool nevertheless: link

On one of the time team shows they used a rounded stone axe and I think a flint? axe, it was a while ago that I watched it but both axes worked to cut a smallish tree down but the stone axe did have more damage to it afterwards.

I have no doubt you can

Thanks for that link pigbear. I guess if you haft an axe-head side-ways, it's an adze. Looks a lot more effective than swinging a stone axe side-ways would be. However, the specimens that man was using all had sharp edges. The example I saw was actually rounded. But I'm convinced now that you can cut down a tree (sapling) with a sharp stone adze.

hi
\ Hers the time team link

YouTube link

Beavers cut down trees with their teeth.

I think the highly polished ones were prestige items rather than common place tools. As you know, Zippy, the polished ones are beautiful & would require hundreds of hours of work. Are you going to cut down a sapling in your yard with an antique & valuable sterling dinner knife?

Rougher stone & flint axes, knocked out in a short period of time, are very effective. When they get blunt, split a new edge. They break? Throw them away & make another.

Maybe the rounded appearance of the axe was created after long use in cutting down trees and other objects?

Yea, depends upon the hardness of the tree, and the diameter or it.

I'm guessing there wouldn't be a lot of need to cut down ones larger than saplings, in many cases.

It's not like they had X-Box and Playstations for entertainment, so had some time on their hands for field craft.

Couldn't a blunt axe be used to drive a wedge to split a tree?

Yes and note stone age tree felling techniques also used various ingenious techniques to add more power to the operation with very large trees, which would still take many days to fell. Lots of detail on Maori tree felling with stone age technology here:
link

See these diagrams for a quick idea of some techniqes:
link
link
link

I love this topic!

This is turning out to be a more productive thread than I'd expected. Thanks for all the links, fellas, I see I'll need some time to explore them.

Sure, I understand that stone-age people felled large trees. It's interesting to see details of techniques used in New Zealand.

I wondered specifically about the use of finely polished blunt-edged axes, like the one I saw Saturday. The edge on this specimen was clearly blunted by design rather than by use.

Sure, such artifacts are prestige objects. But it seems they must have some practical use, or why invest so much labor in them? You wouldn't cut down a sapling with your grandfather's fine pattern-welded steel broadsword, but you would strap it on your waist and take it to war.

Is there any evidence of warriors fighting with humungous polished stone axes? Maybe skeletal evidence of battle casualties with massive smashing injuries?

@ Zippy

You need to look at the amazing number of bronze axes that were made in Western Europe: far, far more than could be used. How else do you account for deposits of literally hundreds of often unfinished bronze axes in depositions?

See here:

link

The point (if you'll pardon the pun) of a blunt polished stone axe was it was for show, not use.

Vell…someone has to say it…better than a herring !

I recall that a method of cutting down large trees in North America was to make a notch in the tree and place glowing coals in it. It produced a slow burn through a large tree and felled it without the need of saws or metal axes.

I'm a trained anthropologist and have dabbled in experimental archaeology around this topic.

As to the original post – yes, definitely. Farming and associated forest-clearance was underway in western Europe well before bronze tools became widespread. They were using stone axes for some of that, in conjunction with burning areas. As well, people in various parts of North and South America used stone axes for wood cutting. The specific technique used for felling trees depended on what they wanted to use the wood for afterward and several methods were available (including the strategic burning mentioned above).

There IS a practical reason to polish stone axes that are intended for use in felling trees. Chipped stone axes are very sharp and when hafted can be used for cutting trees BUT the irrularities left by the chipping process along the cutting edge act as pressure points and encourage additional uncontrolled chipping, which causes the tool to become dull quickly. The reason is that a tendency to fracture conchoidally (shell-shaped fractures), the quality that makes certain types of stone such as flint chert and obsidian good for making tools, also means that pressure on the high points will also cause the stone to chip readily against a relatively hard material like wood (bone and hardwood are both usable as 'soft' hammers in flint-knapping).

If the same axe is polished along the cutting edge (or the whole axe-head), it reduces/removes the points where conchoidal fractures are most likely to start, so a polished axe or adze lasts much longer when cutting hard materials. Although polishing axe-heads takes time and is tedious, it is still much more effective to do it than to have to resharpen an unpolished axe continuously (losing stone from the tool each time).

The fact that polished axe-heads are much better for wood-working than simple chipped ones doesn't preculde them from being tradable prestige items as well. The distribution of high-grade tool-making stone isn't uniform – the material was quarried and traded over long distances. People close to the sources had first choice of the higher grade pieces and could produce finished products for trade. Trade in certain types of shells and food items is also well documented in North America and I expect was done in neolithic Europe.

Curiously, there is less practical reason to polish an axe-head if it intended to be used for a weapon – the chipped edges are more than adequate for cutting flesh (both piercing and slashing) and meat doesn't put pressure on the edge in a way that is likely to cause accidental chipping (bone still does, of course). Warriors have always appreciated good-looking kit though, and polishing stone weapons for the sake of beauty makes sense.

Pattus Magnus has it about right I reckon.

In think the idea of the "wedge seems to make sense but the ' time team ' chaps I believe would be your -go to- team for this zippy…….I'm certain you saw the film Rapa Nui, (no doubt I spelled that wrong) but I believe they felled ALL the trees on the island with stone implements.