The “Malone Hoard”, consisting of 19 finely polished stone axes found at Danesfort in Northern Ireland. The axes, which are made from a stone called porcellanite, are too large and heavy for practical use, so they are thought to have had a ceremonial purpose. 4000-2000 BCE, Ulster Museum [4156×3078]

Wow, those are beautiful, just as pieces of smoothly finished stone. I wonder if these were just carried around by important people, hafted and worn tucked in a belt or something like that, because everyone normally carried an axe since it was just the everyday general purpose tool of the time. Perhaps high status people had no real need to use an axe, but wanted to follow the style, and so the luxury model axe was created. Basically, maybe these were the neolithic equivalent of someone driving around in a gigantic $80K luxury pickup truck that has never once been used to haul anything. That would qualify as “ceremonial use” wouldn’t it?

“Too large and heavy to use? Sounds like a skill issue.”- Neolithic Gym Bro

I’ve been to Rathlin Island, one of the sites where porcellanite occurs. It has a really unique texture, it feels creamy. I can completely understand why the axes became trade goods.

Maybe they were used as proto-currency? I know that bronze axe heads were used as such during the same time period, so maybe it was the same here.