The older types are generally longer and broader and have a thinner butt than the later thick-butted axe. They tend to be seen as a working axe, and originate from roughly 3700–3200 BC.

The thin-butted axe is usually made from flint, but some versions in other stone occur in both flint-rich and flint-poor areas.

Characteristic of Western Sweden, Southern Norway and particularly the Oslofjord during the latter part of the Early Stone Age. The edge is polished and the butt bears signs of hammering. The Lihult axe (Norwegian Nøstvet axe) is a roughly hewn greenstone axe.Use wear analysis shows that the flake axe was probably used for preparing skins, rather than woodwork or other tasks. The flake axe is a type of axe made from a large flake chipped from a core, whose edge is used for the broad edge of the axe.The core axe appeared during the Early Stone Age. The core axe is a roughly hewn, unpolished flint axe with a pointed butt and the widest part often towards the cutting edge.When, much later, the axe was given a wooden handle, several different types of axes were developed, which may be divided into two main groups: Non-shaft-hole axes and shaft-hole axes.Īs the name suggests, the non-shaft-hole axes had no hole for the handle and were generally made from flint, greenstone or slate. Gradually, the design was refined to include knives, scrapers and arrowheads, amongst other things. The hand axe was probably used for many different tasks, everything from butchering animals to digging up tubers. The hand axe was a pear-shaped and roughly chipped stone tool brought to an even point, with a broad handle.

The axe is one of the oldest tools used by mankind. Sometimes there is reference to a “Copper Age” as the transition period from Stone Age to Bronze Age. The Late Stone Age, which covers the period when farming became the main means of subsistence. The Early Stone Age, when humans lived by hunting and fishing, which spans the time from the first production of stone tools around 2.5 million years ago to the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000–11,000 years ago – and The name comes from the fact that most of the period’s cutting tools are made from stone. The Stone Age is the period in human history that marks the advent of tool production.

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