File:Bronze Age Shafthole Adze (FindID 739259).jpg

English: An incomplete 'shafthole' adze of Bronze Age date - probably earlier Bronze Age date (2200-1500 BC). The implement is broadly a flat oval in profile and has a single perforation through the flat faces. The perforation has a hour glass profile charactersitic of having been pecked from both sides. It seems likely that this perforation is not central to the axe. The pebble has fractured across the perforation, and this half is broadly rectangular in plan with a rounded, tapered end. There are some heavily patinated chips in the end suggesting it may have been used as a hammer or mace. The break across the hole is old and unabraded it is possible that it may have broken in use, although the damage (along with longitudinal scratches on the main body) might be more recent.

The core of the pebble is grey in colour and one of the flat faces has been polished. Other surfaces show the traces of small peck marks where the adze has been shaped and formed. The stone has been identified by Mr. Daniel Lockett, geological curator for Shropshire Museums who notes that the stone is most likely to be a very hard Devonian micaceous sandstone. This stone type occurs throughout the Marches and so it may be produced locally - especially given the axe-hammer procuremnet site (Group XII) based near Hyssington on the slopes of Corndon Hill, Shropshire.

The pebble half measures: 91.4mm wide, 98.0mm long and 38.3mm thick. It weighs 494 grams.

The perforation diameter is 19.6mm at the centre, and 32.3mm at the outer surface.

Similar perforated pebbles are recorded on the PAS database from Codford, Wiltshire (WILT-3AC67D), Burton in Kendal, Cumbria (<a href="https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/612263" title="View details for LANCUM-4F60E1">LANCUM-4F60E1</a>) and from the Isle of Wight (<a href="https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/162078" title="View details for IOW-C94CC5">IOW-C94CC5</a>)

Dr. Kevin Leahy comments: "Shafthole adzes were discussed by Roe (1979, p.36, Fig. 13) who saw them as a relatively uncommon type. The perforation is typically of hour-glass type (as in the case of this find) and the implements tend to have a length which is twice their width. Both ends were sharpened but do not appear to have had useful cutting edges. It is likely that that they were in use around the same time as Battle Axes and Axe Hammers.