Neolithic axes day

Neil might have been talking about stone axes since the first date. So when I got an update email from Heneb, the body that the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust was absorbed into, that mentioned a day dedicated to stone axes, I made sure to mention that to him. Unsurprisingly, he was enthusiastic, so we decided to go. It was a day to mark the end of the Landscape of Neolithic Axes project, in which I had done a day of volunteering. I was keen to see where it had got them too! 

We met up in Penmaenmawr. We wanted to see the talks, which were held in the local community hall. It was already quite busy when we got there! I wasn't surprised, but Neil was. We got ourselves a cup of coffee and a biscuit and then it started.

Jane starting the day

I really liked the talks. The first one, by Jane who had been leading the day of volunteering I had done, basically gave an overview of the project. They had found some interesting stuff!

The second talk was by a Sheffield PhD student called Alison who had basically been analising the finds of the project. One of the things she had done was measure up all the flakes created during axe making. She had also asked an experimental archaeologist to do some axe making, and she had measured his flakes as well. She had concluded the smaller flakes just don't get preserved. They might just travel down the slope and leave the site.

The third talk was by a lady who had officially retired from the National Scottish Museums, and who was a self-confessed axe nerd. She talked a lot about jadeitite axes, where they were from, how they were made, what they were for, where they had ended up, and things like that. These were veritable objects of beauty. And that seemed to have been important; none had any signs of wear and tear. 

I thought all of them were very interesting! And Jane said that there was an exhibition in the local museum, and that behind the museum the experimental archaeologist would do workshops. So we went! First to the workshops. And where that was taking place we found John, the archaeologist I have met many times in the context of such public events. Including the day of volunteering at an excavation. He said that in order to join the workshops you need to have signed up, but that it was quite possible that there would be no-shows. If that was the case, we could join! And there were no-shows. So in spite of us not having had lunch yet we seized that opportunity and sat down with James, the axe expert, of Ancient Craft. 

The idea was that John and a companion had gone to the site where it was clear Neolithic people had been sourcing the stones they would work into tools, and carried a whole lot of them down. With James's help we would try to each turn one of them into an axe. Gloves and goggles were provided.

He first demonstrated how it is done, and then set us to work. It was fun! And none of us are particularly good at it, but that didn’t matter. I was quite happy how I was working on the narrow end, but my stone had a thick end as well, and I really struggled to do anything constructive with that. James saw me struggle and volunteered to take the difficult end off. So he did.

Towards the end he went around everyone, and if they weren't happy with what they had produced he would improve on it. In the end everyone could go home with a satisfying axe! 

By then we were starving, and we found a place in the shade to have lunch. And then we had a look at the museum. The museum didn't really show us anything we hadn't seen in either the talks or the workshop, but it was good to see, anyway. There was also a room dedicated to an apparently very famous local train crash in 1950. I didn't know about that at all. 

This day had worked out a lot better than expected. The talks were fab, and we had accidentally managed to get into a knapping workshop. What’s not like?