File:Mesolithic tranchet axe illustration (FindID 85518).jpg

English: This tranchet axe is complete. It measures 120mm x 36mm x 23mm. It is made of dark and light grey flint with inclusions. There are two areas with cortex remaining. Two stages of flaking are clearly visible, first at the top, or hafted, end of the axe. This flaking is bold and is the remains of the original roughing out of the artefact, which has created a triangular section. Secondly, the lower, or blade half of the axe has fine shallow flake removals obliterating the roughing out, in favour of a smooth surface. The tranchet flake removal, from which the artefact gets its name, is the flake removal across the blade end to sharpen the edge.

Mesolithic tranchet adzes, with their characteristic ‘whale back’ profiles are not uncommon, but this artefact has a more or less evenly converging profile as would be looked for with an axe. (Axes are hafted parallel to the handle, whereas adzes are hafted across or at right angles to the handle). Mesolithic tranchet axes are rare.

In general tranchet adzes in Britain tend to have a similarly shaped butt and blade end, but in Essex, a pointed butt end is more usual (Martingell 2001, Essex Archaeology and History Volume 32, 237). They are ‘type-fossils’ for the Early Mesolithic, 9000-6000 BC, when they first appear and then would seem to have continued on into the early Neolithic with minor modifications.(note by Hazel Martingell).