From the old collection Archives Prehistoric Europe!
These terrific Western European Neolithic stone artifact is a
156mm long keeled flake scraper with concave working edge, made of a "Livre de Beurre".
Most likely a arrowshaft straightener.
Sometimes the core from which the flake is split is carefully shaped and on one side has a keel formed by alternate flaking to both sides; thus the first blade to be struck off will have these flaking scars and be a so called keel blade.
At the time of the Central European Bell Beaker Culture,
4500-4000 years ago, these blades were highly prized and
exchanged from the French Le Grand Pressigny area
over great distances across Europe.
Bell Beaker Culture is also known as Glockenbecher (German)
and Gobelet campaniforme (French) culture.
Among the Middle Neolithic objects discovered in Passage Graves, and occurring as stray finds, we find objects belonging to a separate culture, the Bell Beaker Culture. The culture known as Bell Beaker is the largest portion of the loosely grouped Beaker Folk, named for a very particular type of ceramic vessel, shaped like an upside-down bell. A very widespread culture were pastoralists from the Late Copper Age into the Early Bronze Age, ca. 2500-2200 BC. This group appears almost simultaneously over an immense area extending from the coastal regions of Southwest Europe through the whole of Central Europe as far as Denmark. It has been customary to represent this culture as spreading through Europe from Central Spain but it proves to be of foreign derivation even in Spain and its origins can be traced further South to North Africa and Egypt. In Northern Europe their influence can clearly be seen in the earlier objects from the Eastern Single Grave area. The comparatively small number of relics of this culture groups undoubtedly, in Denmark as in the rest of Europe, stands in inverse proportion toits importance in cultural development. The bearer of this culture have been described as armed merchants.
Provenance is an old German collection, formerly an old French collection!
I guarantee absolutely for the authenticity.
Please view also my other auctions with
relics from the European Prehistory.