Comparaison d'outils préhistoire et aujourd'hui

Apologies for such a long time between posts this year, but we've been very tied up with other things,  like Aigronne Valley Wildlife, however...

We spent a fascinating evening a long year ago at Le Panier d'Alice in La Celle Guenand, at a réunion organised by the Association Nomade "Le Champ des Livres". The president of the Friends of the Grand Pressigny Château Museum, Mr. Michel Geslin, brought a sample of his personal collection of prehistoric stone tools, many of them collected by his grandfather, along with a box of modern tools and devices, and he invited those present to match the old with the new. It has led us to become Amis de la Museé ourselves.

M.Geslin is holding a 'chunk' of fossil wood that someone brought along.

One thing we found astonishing was the sophistication and degree of specialisation among the stone tools. A burin, or point for reaming bone or leather, was carefully faceted, with the result that the point was strengthened, thus prolonging the life of the tool. The modern equivalent was a steel point which a panelbeater would use to make hand-built bodywork (for example, for a Morgan sports car). The modern tool and the old were exactly the same, except for the material from which they were made.

The coffee grinder and the mill wheel dressing hammer are 'together'...
from time to time the quern and its tool needed to be re-dressed...
the tool for that is under the coffee grinder handle.

The hammer here is similar to the first post on this blog... the similarity of these tools is wonderful.

The missing picture... the 'lighter' is the best in my opinion!

In the first picture... the stone sphere, smooth and polished, was used for grinding grain, and another stone sphere, with a knobbly surface, was used to roughen the surface of the millstones and the grinder once they became too smooth.

We all also had the opportunity to bring along our own "finds".
One of our flakes proved to be a waste fragment from the production of a Grand Pressigny "livre de beurre".
Our "Swiss army flint" was indeed a multi-use tool with different man-made edges and notches and we had found an arrowhead. Not one of the beautiful classic "arrow pointer" shape, but an arrowhead just the same. More about these in following posts...



Mr. Geslin holds these and other talks quite regularly, so if you see one advertised, we recommend a visit.