In a
North American native people's context, such
tools, usually cut branches, were used as hoes for cultivation. Most agricultural
tools used by native Americans that I am aware of were made from various small tree trunks and branches with various shapes. As for Europe, given that metal was available much earlier, I have no idea, although the right shaped branch would
still have made a useful tool for cultivated ground and it would have been free if harvested and shaped by the farmer.
This opens up an interesting thought. How many farmers actually bought metal
tools versus
tools they could make themselves? In
North America, we know of such
tools because they were
still using them at the time of first European contacts that occurred much later in
history whereas in Europe many natural
tools like this have probably rotted away or possibly been ignored as remnants. I am commenting on what you describe as a
lagobolon, not the wine vessel.
Virgil
