23rd January 2009, 04:24 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by kevin wooldridge
Didn't see the programme, but a Scandanavian origin does seem unlikely for the simple reason that there ain't a great deal of naturally occuring flint in Scandinavia.
Unless of course the expert was using Scandinavia in its geopolitical sense rather than its geological origins. So where would the boundaries of the Scando-Atlantic neolithic be?. Probably somewhere closer to Oxfordshire than in the modern day sense....
Um...still seems unlikely though.
PS Would it have been Lars Tharp who suggested that it came from Scandinavia. Wasn't his dad/grandad director of the National Museum in K?benhavn? I am sure he told me something like that once.... Oops too much inside info there...
I'm sure I've come across references to Scandinavian polished flint axes so I'm not sure - anyway, it was Mr Tharp who was looking at the item (the miracles of Google's image search allowed me to check that in seconds!) so it is perhaps not surprising he suggested a Scandinavian origin!
it was the thing about them being used as plough shares I was more surprised by - has that every really been suggested?