The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe

by Chris Fowler

  Pressure flaking

  Pressure flaking as a technique for producing small blades and for retouching tools was invented during the Upper Palaeolithic (Inizan 2002), and was also practised in the Mesolithic—e.g. in the Scandinavian Maglemosian (Sørensen 2006) and the western Mediterranean Castelnovian (Binder 1998). However, its earliest Neolithic occurrence in Europe, in seventh millennium Greece, seems to have been inspired by Anatolian examples (Perlès 2001).

  The first innovation connected to pressure flaking is the controlled, intentional heat-treatment of cores, which changes the physical properties of the raw material and facilitates the detachment of bladelets (Binder 1998). It is first encountered in early and middle Neolithic assemblages in Spain (Martínez-Fernández 1997), and became especially popular during the fifth millennium in the southern French Chasséen. There, heat treatment and pressure flaking interface with indirect percussion, not only as contemporary separate traditions, but sometimes as part of a single reduction sequence in which orthogonal cores first produced medium-sized punched blades and subsequently were reduced in size, given an acute platform angle, and heat-treated. Both the punched blades and the cores were then transferred to regional settlements (Léa 2005). The necessary force may have been applied with small, hand-held flakers—such as that found with the Hauslabjoch Iceman (Spindler 1994), made by inserting an antler spike into a wooden handle.

  For the second innovation, no direct archaeological evidence exists as yet. In many areas, however, the pressure technique seems also to have been used to manufacture very long blades of over 40cm. As experiments and theoretical considerations of physical laws show that this would have involved forces far exceeding those a human body can provide, it is assumed that these blades were made using compound flakers, equipped with a levering device to multiply human strength (Pelegrin 2006).

  The third innovation, closely connected with the second, concerns the use of copper-tipped levers. Initial indications for their use were derived from the recognition of characteristic cracks on the butts of both archaeological and experimental long blades. Subsequently, in at least one case chemical analyses revealed the presence of actual copper traces on the butts of pressed blades (Renault 2006), and possible copper tips were recovered from relevant archaeological assemblages (Manolakakis 2007). The oldest of these lever-flaked ‘super’ blades are documented in Copper Age north-east Bulgaria during the second half of the fifth millennium. Extraction and manufacturing sites have been discovered close to the Kamenovo tell near Ravno (Manolakakis 2007), from where the blades circulated over distances of up to 900km. Later on, the tradition was transmitted further north to the Ukraine and Poland (Balcer 2002; Migal 2006). Ultimately, it reached southern Scandinavia, where from c. 2500 BC onward it was used in the final stages of the manufacture of flint daggers (Apel 2008).

  Similar long and very long blades, made from a great variety of high-quality flint types, were made in Spain, southern France, Sardinia, and northern Italy from the first half of the fourth millennium onward (Vaquer and Briois 2006). They, too, are produced by copper-tipped levers, at a period when early metallurgy first appears. Often they were retouched into dagger-like shapes, sometimes partly polished and carrying extremely careful parallel surface retouches, and subsequently distributed over large areas. Some daggers from the Lake Garda region in northern Italy crossed the Alps to reach south-eastern Bavaria, inspiring the manufacture of daggers and other cutting tools from bifacially worked tabular flints, as local raw material constraints precluded long blade manufacture (Tillmann 1993). Similar technological short-cuts have been documented in southern France and Spain (Vaquer and Briois 2006) and show the importance of long-range networks and the emulation of prestige items for local practices and identities.

  Given the considerable spatial and cultural distance between the early south-eastern and south-western European production areas, independent invention of both lever-pressing and the use of copper tips cannot be excluded. In both areas, evidence for the experimental stages of trial and error, and for the gradual acceptance of the new technique and its integration into existing technological and symbolic frameworks (Lemonnier 1993; Ottaway 2001), is still lacking. Its appearance in the western Mediterranean, at a time when copper daggers were still virtually unknown there, suggests that the intrinsic quality of the copper tip, enabling knappers to achieve long and regular blades more easily, may have been appreciated and led to their use before the appearance of copper daggers caused rivalry between flint and copper in the realm of prestige (Renault 1998).

  Indirect percussion

  The punch technique is rooted in late Mesolithic knapping traditions and was widely practised in both the Mediterranean and the Danubian current of Neolithization. In the former, it is best known from the Cardial (Binder 1998); in the latter it first occurs in the Starčevo-Körös complex. A good example of its gradual transformation is the LBK tradition of central and western Europe. In the earliest phases of the LBK culture, the procedure chosen for core preparation is indistinguishable from that practised by late and final Mesolithic groups (Gronenborn 1999; Mateiciucová 2003, 2008): before each blade was detached, fine-tuning took place by removing tiny chips from the striking platform. As LBK settlement spread westwards, new knapping procedures were devised, apparently independent from indigenous hunter-gatherer practices (De Grooth 2008). They involved increasingly careful initial preparation of cores by means of one or more crests; rather perfunctory trimming of the core face; centripetal platform faceting; and the systematic, almost exuberant removal of whole series of rejuvenation tablets (Figure 25.3)(Allard 2005). These procedures continued to be practised in various combinations by the later LBK and most of the groups succeeding it (Allard and Bostyn 2006), although a disruption occurred with the Cerny group. Core length gradually increased, too, and ultimately, whenever good quality flint was available, medium-sized and long blades were produced from pyramidal or cylindrical cores reduced (semi)revolvingly.

  Application of the punch technique seemingly got a new impetus with the Michelsberg culture. At knapping sites connected to flint mines, such as Rijckholt-St. Geertruid (Netherlands) or Spiennes (Belgium)—where an antler punch was found among knapping debris—long blades of 15–25cm were manufactured all through the fourth millennium. The cores were given a flat back and a single, wide core face, which was opened after systematic preparation of three crests. The lateral ones were needed to control the curvature of the core face, and the frontal one served to guide the first blade detachment.

  This same type of core is thought to represent the earliest long blade production in Touraine and Poitou, the region around Le Grand-Pressigny flint source. There, shortly before 3000 BC, the punch tradition underwent its final, and most remarkable, transformation with the creation of the livre-de-beurre (pound of butter) blade cores. As at Spiennes and Rijckholt, livre-de-beurre cores are opened on a wide front and have a flat back; they are, however, much longer, often over 40cm. Moreover, they had just two lateral crests, shaped so that the distal ends of the preparation negatives met at the central axis of the intended core face, forming a ridge to guide the first blade. Before every blade detachment, two small flakes were removed on the striking platform, creating a ridge that was then roughened with a special pecking stone. Experiments indicate that super-long blades could only be detached by indirect percussion using a heavy stone hammer wrapped in leather (to soften the blow) and a specially shaped antler punch, and resting the core on an elastic wooden support to absorb the shock of the heavy blow (Pelegrin 2002).

  On a much smaller scale, this characteristic technique was also applied in several other regions, often at a distance of hundreds of kilometres from Le Grand-Pressigny, notably in the Bergerac (Delage 2004), in the Vercors (Riche 2006), and at Romigny and Lhéry close to Reims (Delcourt-Vlaeminck 2004), suggesting that some of the knapping specialists may have been rather mobile, and in part were actively involved in long blade distribution (Pelegrin 2002).r />
  SOCIAL CONNOTATIONS

  Until recently, many studies of lithic production were mainly concerned with the technological and chronological aspects discussed in the previous section. During the last decades, however, anthropologically inspired approaches increasingly regard flint tools not only in technological or functional terms, but as objects endowed with value and power, playing an important role in constructing individual and group identities (Barfield 2003; Van Gijn 2010). One of the key issues is the position of the flint knappers in their communities, and more specifically the question of specialization (Torrence 1986; Olausson 1997). It is generally—although mostly implicitly—assumed that acquiring and processing of flint was a predominantly male activity. As ethnographic accounts (e.g. Pétrequin and Pétrequin 1999) provide some justification for this view, I tend to adhere to it (but see e.g. Gero 1991 for a different perspective). Basically, the term ‘specialist’ refers to those people who perform complicated tasks more successfully than others and, because of their special skills, tend to perform them more often as well, whilst also coordinating the work of less experienced team-mates. Moreover, they consistently produce objects for people outside their own household. Because of their special skills, specialists may earn respect and acquire status within their community—there are, however, very few cases of persons identifiable as flint knapping specialists through grave goods (cf. Lech 1980; Korek 1986).

  During the entire period, the most widespread type of specialization was regional or between groups. This distinguishes between producers and consumers, the former being involved more actively in the acquisition of raw material, the initial stages of core preparation, and/or blade production (Lech 2003). An early example is the circulation of obsidian in Greece (Perlès 2001). From the mid-fifth millennium onwards, there is increased evidence for within-group specialization as well, i.e. a situation in which the division of labour within a given community was not based on age and sex alone, and accordingly not all households participated to the same extent in lithic production.

  Other relevant topics are the examination of the social relations of production, distribution, and consumption of flint tools, and the distinction between routinely produced domestic tools and objects possibly invested with additional, symbolic or prestige value, in part because their manufacture was time-consuming and required special skills.

  A well-founded assessment of these issues cannot be based on a single production site or settlement, but should integrate data from extraction and production sites alongside the settlements of producers and consumers (Torrence 1986). Unfortunately, in many cases these conditions are not yet met (e.g. Léa 2005).

  An example of such an integrated approach for an early Neolithic context is the Linearbandkeramik of central and western Europe. Here, flint knapping basically was a domestic activity in which all households participated (De Grooth 2007). All Bandkeramik groups preferentially acquired high-quality raw material from considerable distances, rather than make do with local lower-quality rocks. Moreover, they established multidirectional long-distance supply systems for distributing flint and other siliceous rocks, which were maintained for many generations. Ultimately, these networks connected nearly all Bandkeramik settlement regions (Burnez-Lanotte 2003). In many cases, flints were passed on between different regional groups (Allard 2005; Binsteiner 2005), but social boundaries preventing contact have also been identified (Zimmermann 1995). In some regions, pioneer settlements were more actively involved in knapping and functioned as regional redistribution centres (Kegler-Graiewski and Zimmermann 2003; De Grooth 2007). Flint circulated predominantly as prepared or partially reduced cores; only at the end of the supply lines, when cores became exhausted, were blades and tools handed on. However, in the latest phases, a more differentiated pattern emerged, in which nodules and cores were transferred in one direction and blades in others (Allard and Bostyn 2006). In some settlements, lithics arriving from different directions were unevenly distributed among the household clusters (Lüning 2005); in others, at the periphery of the Bandkeramik world, flints from the core region were used more intensively for tool production than local material (Lech 2003).

  Thus, the use of specific flint types may have contributed to the reproduction of identity on a household or lineage level, and to the maintenance of kinship and ancestral relations. There is no evidence, however, that flint tools as such were endowed with special values. Repeatedly, subtle changes in knapping style occurred when new regions were settled and new flint sources were being explored (De Grooth 2008). This is probably connected to a need to create a new identity for groups moving away from the ancestral homeland, changing as much of their material culture as possible without alienating the ancestors or causing the preceding generations staying in the homeland to sever supply chains (Sommer 2001).

  Production, use, and deposition of long blades

  In many aspects, fundamental changes in the organization of lithic production and distribution manifest themselves from the second half of the fifth millennium onwards, especially in areas where more complex societies were emerging. Commonly, a clear dichotomy exists between the bulk of mundane domestic tools, often of low-quality flints, in whose production little skill and effort were invested, and a few exceptional tools made on standardized blades. Their manufacture, more often than not, did not take place in the settlements, but at special locations at or close to acquisition sites. This spatial concentration of procurement and manufacturing, as well as the increasingly complex chaînes opératoires, may well have been linked to a higher level of specialization, involving only a restricted number of craft specialists. This idea is borne out by the situation at the Ćmielow settlement in Poland, where only a few households were involved in TRB (Funnel Beaker culture) long blade production (Balcer 2002).

  In most studies devoted to the organizational aspects of long blade manufacture, this is regarded as a part-time, seasonal activity, performed alongside subsistence activities (e.g. Felder et al. 1998; Balcer 2002; Pelegrin 2002; Riche 2006). Once more, the Le Grand-Pressigny area may serve as an example (Pelegrin 2002). Unfortunately, at present very little information on settlements in the area is available (Villes 2003), but one may envisage specialists living in the rather large area around Le Grand-Pressigny, where isolated examples of knapping waste occur. A maximum of 10,000 long blades are thought to have been produced there yearly, whilst the daily output of an experienced knapper could have been some 25 blades, deriving from two or three livre-de-beurre cores (Pelegrin 2002). Thus, five knapping teams would have needed about three months or, alternatively, 50 teams could have performed the task in less than two weeks.

  It is tempting to regard the evidence from the La Creusette hoard (Geslin et al. 1980) as an indication that the latter figure is not entirely unrealistic, as its c. 130–140 blades represent a selection of c. 500–800 blades produced from 50–80 cores (Pelegrin 2002). Similar hoards of partly conjoinable blades also occur at other knapping sites. Their intentional deposition, with every knapper giving part of his production back to the earth, may be seen as the material expression of ritual, aimed at reconciliation (Edmonds 1998), or imprinting the cosmological significance of the sites on the community’s collective memory (Högberg 2006), rather than as a purely utilitarian cache where blades were simply stored for future use.

  In such a setting, the transmission of skills may have become more structured, too. However, as knapping traditions still persisted for centuries, the transmission of knowledge and know-how through trajectories of learning-by-doing, enhanced by myths and rituals, must have formed a stable part of communities’ routine, not only involving just a chosen few. Although some attempts have been made to distinguish the work of children and less experienced knappers (Bąbel 1997; Pelegrin 2006), this aspect clearly needs to be explored more fully (Bamforth and Finlay 2008). It is not easy to assess how difficult it was to acquire the skills necessary for long blade manufacture in either the punch or the pressure technique
. The experiences of modern knappers cannot be uncritically projected on the past, as they had to re-invent during a short time span a range of alien methods and techniques that in prehistoric real-life conditions would have been part of a community’s shared heritage (cf. Dobres 2006).

  Performing the manufacture of long blades close to raw material outcrops should be seen as a means not only of minimizing time and energy expenditure, but also of stimulating inter-group activities. The congregation of large numbers of people, whose day-to-day relationships as close neighbours may well have been rather strained, could have served primarily to lessen tensions, to re-establish traditional kinship ties and reciprocal obligations, and to re-emphasize group identities. Moreover, the act of knapping would have been performed in an atmosphere of male social competition and emulation, and thus could have played a role in the construction of individual identities as well. Estimates based on experiments and refitting suggest that at Le Grand-Pressigny, every livre-de-beurre core would have yielded only some ten super blades, and that a skilled knapper could work two or three cores a day (Pelegrin 2002). In terms of both raw material economy and investment of labour, this seems an extremely inefficient procedure, but it makes sense when regarded as the punchers’ answer to the southern French pressers’ impressive expression of their social identity.