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Lot 108B
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Late Archaic Hardstone 3/4 Grooved Axe Head
Late Archaic Hardstone 3/4 Grooved Axe Head
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Native American, Late Archaic to Woodland period, ca. 3000 BCE – 500 CE. A dense cobble of hardstone, pecked into form and ground to a quiet luster, its body swelling toward a rounded poll and easing to a working bit, banded near its midpoint by a single shallow groove cut to seat a haft. The maker began with a waterworn stone of stubborn hardness, likely a basalt or diorite carried from some streambed, and reduced it through patient percussion, blow upon blow, before abrading the whole against a coarser stone until the surface took on its smooth, almost biomorphic swell. The encircling channel is the telling feature: a three-quarter groove, drawn around three faces and leaving one flat panel uninterrupted, a refinement over the older full groove that let the head ride flush against a steam-bent or split wooden handle, lashed tight with rawhide or sinew. Size: 6.1" L x 2.4" W x 2.5" D (15.5 cm L x 6.1 cm W x 6.3 cm D).

Tools of this weight were the heavy industry of their age, swung to fell standing timber, to girdle trees and let the sun in, to hollow dugout canoes and open the small horticultural clearings around which Eastern Woodland life increasingly turned. The hours folded into such an object, days of grinding for a single edge, hint that the axe was more than disposable equipment, perhaps a curated possession passed forward, perhaps interred with the hand that wielded it. Ground stone resists the calendar, and its age is read through form, manufacture, and the slow grammar of typology rather than any inscription it carries.

Provenance: private Lumberton, Texas, USA collection, acquired before 2010

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Item # 203379

  • Condition: Fair. Chipping to butt and blade edge. Weathering with nicks and surface wear throughout. Otherwise, nice presentation with scattered earthen deposits.

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by Artemis Fine Arts
June 25, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Artemis Fine Arts

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Bid Increments
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$0 $299 $25
$300 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 $199,999 $10,000
$200,000 + $20,000