**First Time At Auction**

North America, Native American, USA Midwest, Archaic Period, ca. 7000 to 1000 BCE. A grooved stone axe, hand-knapped and smoothed from a black river cobble. The axe has been attached to a long wooden handle using fibrous twine by a more recent owner, but is similar to how we believe these items were mounted. Grooved axes (sometimes called celts) have a wedge-shaped cutting edge used for wood working, with a groove for mounting it to provide further leverage. Axes like this one were common throughout the Mississippi River Valley and as far afield as Oklahoma and the Ohio River Valley, used for millennia - indeed, the axe is one of humanity's oldest tools, its form barely changed today! Size: 20" L (of handle) x 2" W x 5.55" H (50.8 cm x 5.1 cm x 14.1 cm)

Provenance: private Parker Collection, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

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#125598

Small chips from edges, with a larger chip from the underside of the back end of the blade. The handle and twine are not contemporary.