Pre-Columbian Neolithic Celt from Central Panama

Item PL03  

This Item was Sold on 10 December 2012 for $14


Similar artifacts for sale are often found on the Lithic Artifacts web page. 

Historical Pricing information for this item and similar artifacts can be found at: Historical Artifact Prices.


This Pre-Columbian Neolithic Celt is from Central Panama. This celt has been knapped and then the cutting edge was ground down, so it is Neolithic, rather than Paleolithic. I lived in Panama as a child in the 1950s and 1960s. I collected similar celts around the shoreline of Gatun Lake. This type of celt was occasionally found on the SE shoreline of Navy Island which is located less than a mile from the southern approach to Gatun Locks. This type of celt was also found along the shoreline of Madden Lake. I brought several celts that looked just like this one to U.C. Berkeley in the 1960s. A professor in the Dept. of Anthropology said that my celts resembled similar celts in the U.C. Berkeley collection that were dated between 500 B.C. and 1,000 A.D. This particular celt is small. It has a lenticular cross-section and the material is Basalt. There are a couple of chips on the cutting edge. View pdf files showing Panama Celt sale prices on eBay: Celt #1 and Celt #2.

Length = 51 mm ; Width = 45 mm ; Thickness = 17 mm ; Weight = 48 gm


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