Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Danish Dagger Disovery - Once in a Lifetime

I believe this is probably a type II dagger, although the handle could be stitched under the grip.
Regardless, whether it's a II or III, it should fall within the 2300-1900 range.

It came out of a bog so the flint is probably stained to give it a darker obsidian look, but the news report clearly calls it flint.  Theoretically, if it is a type II or III it should be Chalcolithic (aka Early Brone Age) basically either a Beaker dagger or a people in communication with Beaker culture.
You can read about it at [Past Horizons]

Bog Dagger with Birch Handle

In a previous post [here]I expressed skepticism that these daggers were cheap substitutes for copper daggers.

While their form parallels the development of metal daggers, I don't know that I would necessarily call this imitation.  I would rather say that style changed regardless of its material composition.

Given the long history of Danish dagger making and the difficulty of finding suitable blocks of flint, I lean toward the idea that this is a distinct tradition rooted in the Late Neolithic and one that was maintained for nostalgic and practical reasons.


Nostalgia goes a long way.

2 comments:

  1. Looks a lot like Mayan daggers of a comparable stage of their development although later chronologically.

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    1. There are some puzzling examples of stone work in the Americas. I don't know about the Mayan dagger but Moroccan arrowheads do look like Aztec ones. Sometimes its hard to know when similarities mean something or not.

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