Archaeologists Found a 7,500-Year-Old Antler. Turns Out It’s a Sacred Weapon.

• A haul of Stone Age artifacts included a highly ornamental cervid antler that had been turned into an ax handle.

• The find is highly rare, according to experts, and apt served aggregate uses.

• After usage arsenic an ax handle—and aboriginal harpoon—it was sacrificed successful a ritual site.

You could (and would) bash a batch with a cervid antler backmost successful the day. By “back successful the day,” we mean astir 5500 B.C., of course—the play successful which a precocious discovered antler was utilized successful a assortment of ways. Archaeologists discovered the antler wrong a Stone Age settlement, noting some its ornamental carvings and its usage archetypal arsenic the grip for a conflict ax, and aboriginal arsenic a harpoon.

In a caller survey published successful the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, pb writer Lars Larsson (an archaeology prof astatine Sweden’s Lund University) and Fredrik Molin (archaeologist astatine Sweden’s National Historical Museum) highlighted the “richly decorated antler piece, apt portion of an antler ax” arsenic the astir intriguing find among a immense inventory of Stone Age tools.

According to the survey of the antler, erstwhile a Stone Age craftsman primitively discovered it, they archetypal crushed down and smoothed the p bjectbefore carving shallow ornamentation. Later, that archetypal furniture of ornamental carvings was removed and replaced by a second, deeper motif filled with diagonal lines.

The triangular shapes and patterns appeared astatine the time, Larsson wrote, arsenic pointed tips connected rods akin to spears. “They drawback the oculus arsenic they are intelligibly antithetic from different motifs,” Larsson said. “The motifs surely pull one’s eye.” The grooves of the plan were filled successful with a dark, tar-like substance.

Larsson wrote that it was absorbing how, for immoderate reason, the archetypal motif was crushed distant to marque country for the caller pattern, which was apt carved by respective people. Parts of the decoration showed constrictive diagonal bands with hatching successful the signifier of oblique lines—a well-known motif successful the Mesolithic era. “It is clear, though, that this ornamentation was carried retired with a bladed cutting edge,” Larsson wrote. “The degrees of precision shown, manners of execution, and motif enactment successful the aboriginal acceptable of decorations suggest that much than 1 idiosyncratic carried it out.”

Discovered successful the Stone Age colony of Strandvagen successful Motala—known arsenic a cardinal hub for hunter-fisher-gatherer groups betwixt 5800 and 5000 B.C.—the portion was among a instrumentality stash of much than 1,400 artifacts. Many were near connected a stone level disconnected the settlement’s shoreline successful a waterway starring to the Baltic Sea. The antler, dated to astir 5500 B.C., was discovered among quality skeletal parts and richly decorated objects, including 20 pieces of quality skull, engraved carnal bones, and chromatic ax blades.

Usage of an antler from a reddish cervid wasn’t communal successful Sweden, but erstwhile they were used, they typically served arsenic the grip of an ax. While Larsson wrote that helium can’t beryllium definite the ax offered a applicable function, it was apt (at least) an important symbolic oregon ritual piece. Still, signs constituent to the antler’s usage successful battle. The breakage patterns connected the antler stay accordant with a conflict ax.

When the antler splintered during usage arsenic an ax handle, it wasn’t mislaid forever. “Subsequently, the ax was breached and transformed into different tool, astir apt a harpoon, which yet besides became fragmented,” Larsson wrote. After the antler served its clip arsenic a harpoon—and erstwhile the owners couldn’t find different usage for the object—it was sacrificed successful a ritual portion and preserved successful the h2o and rocky soil, giving archaeologists a glimpse into Swedish Stone Age beingness 7,500 years later.

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