Newly found copper axe in Switzerland is discovered to be made in the same way and in the same place as the axe found with Oetzi the Iceman. Axes everywhere!

The newly found copper axe from Switzerland.

Oetzi's axe, with handle, from 5300 years ago, found on the Austrian/Italian border, along with a gruesomely mummified Oetzi.

Analysis of a copper axe blade found in Switzerland in 2008 has revealed that it matches the copper axe carried by Ötzi the Iceman, the traveler who was felled by an arrow 5,300 years ago in the Ötztal Alps on the border between modern-day Italy and Austria and was frozen in the ice until some German tourists stumbled on him in 1991.

Last year, researchers discovered that Oetzi the Iceman’s copper axe blade was remarkably pure at 99.7% copper and very much to their surprise, was mined in the Colline Metallifere area near Campiglia Marittima in southern Tuscany. There were active copper mines in the Alps at this time, so the expectation was that Oetzi’s gear would have been produced locally. Instead, either the ingot or the manufactured axe head was traded hundreds of miles to the north of where it was mined or made. 

The newly discovered axe blade unearthed at the prehistoric site of Riedmatt, in canton Zug, Switzerland, in 2008 appears to have made much the same trip. Riedmatt was a small pile-dwelling village on the shores of Lake Zug and a rich density of archaeological remains were found in the small space protected by a coffer dam for excavation.

 Unlike Oetzi’s, the Riedmatt blade is almost pristine, excepting a single notch and surface pitting from several thousand years spent underground. In contrast, Oetzi the Iceman used his a lot and there is evidence of extensive wear and regularly resharpening on the blade. He was a practical chap, that Oetzi. The Swiss axe may not have ever been hafted; it’s impossible to determine because corrosion has eliminated any traces left on the blade of the joining. The finishing of the blade had been completed at the time of its deposition between 3250 and 3100 B.C.

Fascinating stuff.  Folks were perhaps a little more organized back then, and they clearly had a manufacturing system down for trade of these valuable items all over the region. 

Via the History Blog.