Stone Tools

Stone tools are awesome, and I had always wanted a few nice examples but never really pursued it. Then in 2019 I came across an estate sale that had a few stones from various archeological digs, and grabbed a couple from various localities in a few styles. Since then, I’ve also picked up a couple other random stone tools. Some tools in my collection are quite old and are little more than flaked scrapers, while others are nicely formed points.

Unless otherwise noted, these tools came from the estate of Phillip C. Schupp (1870-1967) Chicago, and were acquired in expeditions prior to 1949.

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This stone is not from the Schupp estate, and I’m not as confident in it’s authenticity. Supposedly it is an Acheulean hand axe from the Mauritania region in Africa. It’s a very large tool that completely fills the hand and has an awesome weight. There is noticeable smoothing on the stone.

From the Ebro River Valley in Spain, this is middle to late Paleolithic, 85,000-55,000 BC. Considering the time and location, it was likely made by Neandertals and not humans.

I should probably consider adding a side profile of this stone, because it is very 3 dimensional in shape, with a large bump in the middle that fits nicely into the hand.

From NW Kenya, Rift Valley. Middle Paleo, 300,000-30,000

From the Omo River Valley in Africa, Middle to Late Paleo flake scraper. The seller indicated a pretty big date range of 107,000-17,000 for this stone.

From the Dordogne Valley in France, late Paleolithic scraper, 22,000-15,000

From the Danube River Valley in Germany, Neolithic. 7,000-2,000?

Given to me by a friend, this stone came from the American west.

From the Dordogne Valley in France, a Neolithic blade. Unfortunately, I lost my notes on the dates for this stone. Others from the same region from this seller date to 22,000-15,000, however I wonder if this particular example is more recent.

I found this in a creek in Huntsville, Alabama.

[EDIT] I might need to reconsider some of these photos, as the following picture is of the same stone, and you can much better see the details.