Alabama Historical Commission
Today’s artifact is from Fort Toulouse- Fort Jackson
This is a broken piece of an axe head called a celt (pronounced selt). It was carved from a single piece of greenstone, smoothed down, and sharpened to a thin cutting edge. Indigenous people used this style of axe for thousands of years. However, when European traders introduced iron axes and other metal tools, the traditional craft of making stone tools disappeared very quickly. This shift dramatically changed everyday life and culture for communities across the southeastern frontier…