Type: Stone Axe
Location: Ténéré, Niger
Age: Middle Holocene
Material: Chert
MoST ID: 7320
Pedestal Link: https://une.pedestal3d.com/r/02o36ZY_ko
Model Author: Sandro Elbers
This chert edge-ground axe is from the Ténéré region of the Sahara Desert, Niger. These axes are found on Tenerean period sites, ca. 4500-8200 BP.
Sandro Elbers, artefact number AXH-NEO-003.
People began moving into the Sahara Desert to harvest animals attracted to the lakes and grasslands forming there in the African Humid Period, ca. 5000-14,500 BP. Tenerean people were cattle pastoralists but supplemented their diet with resources from the lakeside environment that existed there at the time. Famous Tenerean period site complexes include Adrar Bous and the recently-excavated cemetery at Gobero. Tenerean disks are part of a technology at Gobero that included retouched flakes of various types, backed microliths, and a variety of triangular, ovate, tanged, and hollow-based bifacial arrowheads made by pressure flaking. Some of these arrowheads are tiny, measuring less than 15 mm long.
