by Chris Fowler
The examination of mines in isolation can give the impression that they represent a fairly generalized and homogeneous phenomenon, with individual mines appearing to share more commonalities with each other than they exhibit differences, despite the incredibly diverse social, economic, and ideological contexts in which they occurred. This is as much due to the mining techniques required to extract flint as it is to the relative absence of a broader range of cultural debris at many mining sites, making it difficult to place them clearly within their local context. As a result, scholars of flint mining confront serious problems in trying to describe the immediate social contexts of labour mobilization. The study of mines may inform us about what was produced, and how, but the social values and meanings attached to both the products and the manner in which they were obtained are, as could be expected, more difficult to grasp.
However, without taking a closer look at mines we would fail to notice some significant aspects of Neolithic societies. Labouring with flint involved an extraordinarily radical and enduring transformation of landscapes in contrast with the frequently small-scale, dispersed, and mobile residential patterns. Considering Neolithic life expectancy, the limited population densities, and the mean size of residential sites contemporary to many of the known flint mines, the probably ritualized acts of gathering at the mine (Topping 2005), sharing labour, performing and learning technical skills, knowledge, and know-how, must have been extremely meaningful and probably central to the construction of multiple group and individual identities. These identities, shaped through the sharing of labour practices, would have been further transmitted throughout the overlapping and frequently dynamic exchange spheres, and materialized by products such as axes and blades in a wide range of contexts beyond their local source.
The interpretation of flint mining takes at least two not necessarily opposed views. Nowadays, the most accepted of these understands the remarkably transformed landscapes and volumes of manufactured flint refuse at mining sites as a result of small-scale, part-time, maybe seasonal long-term action. On the other hand, many mines show a surprising coherence in the structure and nature of their remains, such as the lack of overlapping shafts, some systematic technical reiterations of the operative chains, sets of statistically identical radiocarbon dates dating apparently different mining events, or the refitting of refuse, that point to important contemporaneous clusters of mining shafts and galleries. This evidence suggests that some mining events did in fact involve large-scale actions, and that many mining fields were perhaps the result of the labouring of some few generations of Neolithic groups.
Whatever the extent and tempos of mining activity may have been, labouring for flint ought to have had a central role in the construction of the various kinds of Neolithic identities through time and place. These gatherings must have played an important part in constructing a sense of community during the earliest Neolithic, but also in the increased importance of socially recognized artisans and in the emergence of different social and political asymmetries.
THE WHAT AND WHERE OF EUROPEAN FLINT
Flint has been a preferred raw material for tool-making since the Palaeolithic, because when struck it splits or fractures in a reasonably predictable manner. This kind of fracture (conchoidal) generates strong, sharp cutting edges, and, depending on the artisan’s skill, allows the production of a wide variety of desired tool forms. The use of flint has not been limited to prehistory, of course, being mined into recent times for construction material, ‘strike-a-lights’, gun-flints, or threshers. Although seemingly of little relevance to the Neolithic, this fact is critical when assessing Neolithic flint mining. Many European flint sources were mined during historical times, something which may have affected the remains of earlier mining, whilst surface traces may not always be clearly distinguishable from previous prehistoric activities. At the same time, however, historical records of the actual processes and technology of gunflint mining, for example, provide a useful yardstick with which to compare the Neolithic workings.
Flint is abundant across Europe, but its actual distribution is patchy and variable. It occurs in a variety of contexts, both primary (outcrops and buried nodular seams or tabular sheets) or secondary (gravels in river beds, beach and glacial deposits, clay-with-flints, and so on). The diversity of contexts of formation and of the subsequent geological processes to which flint has been exposed has resulted in a wide range of mechanical and aesthetic qualities. As a result, although most Neolithic communities may have had access to a range of lithic raw materials, some—with specific qualities, like, for example, the aesthetic Polish banded flint—could only be obtained in certain areas or through exchange networks. This uneven distribution of flint in general, and of the best-quality types in particular, was undoubtedly of significance in the Neolithic.
Of all the flint sources known to exist throughout Europe, many were used for procurement, and some—but not all—saw deep mining. To date, mines from the following areas have been extensively reported on in the archaeological literature:
•The English Cretaceous flint-bearing chalks, particularly in East Anglia (e.g. Grime’s Graves, Norfolk) (Lech et al. 2011) and the South Downs of West and East Sussex (e.g. Cissbury, Blackpatch, or Church Hill) (Barber et al. 1999).
•The Paris Basin Bartonian chert, mined at Jablines (Bostyn and Lanchon 1992), among others.
•The Cretaceous flint-bearing chalks of the Meuse valley in the southern Netherlands and northern Belgium, including Rijckholt and Spiennes (Felder et al. 1998).
•Jurassic chert from the right bank of the Rhine, where Kleinkems, the first reported prehistoric flint mine in Germany, was found (Diethelm 1997); Jurassic flint mined at Abensberg-Arnhofen in Bavaria (papers in Rind 2003; Roth 2008).
•Polish Jurassic flints from the Holy Cross Mountains: Krzemionki, one of the most famous European flint mines, is associated with the extraction of banded flint (Borkowski 1995); Wierzbica ‘Zele’ and Tomaszów (Lech and Lech 1984; Schild 1995) were devoted to obtaining chocolate flint, and Swieciechów to spotted flint.
•Several Neolithic mines have been documented in the Gargano Promontory, on the east coast of Italy. Among them are the Defensola mines, where Eocene nodular flint of excellent quality was extracted (Galiberti 2005).
Although the flint from these regions is well known and often mentioned in the archaeological literature, accurate flint sourcing is somewhat problematic. Most of these different types of flint have been described macroscopically, and some have been a focus of petrographic and geochemical analyses. In any case, it is by no means easy to determine the place of origin of any particular piece of flint. Objects of worked flint can generally be traced back to broad regions or general geological formations, but usually not to specific locations within them (Bostyn and Lanchon 1992, 40; Felder et al. 1998, 16). This fact poses an important problem for research on prehistoric procurement strategies in general, and on the distribution and circulation of mined products in particular.
Raw material availability and quality must have played an important role in the technological organization and mobility patterns of prehistoric groups. Regions without flint could have obtained it through exchange networks, as for example happened in the Hungarian Plain (Biró 1998), but it seems likely that most Neolithic communities relied on the available local stone sources for their everyday needs, whether flint or not. In fact, many other sources of useful stone could be found across Europe, including quartz, quartzite, obsidian, eclogite, jadeite, and dolerite (Duke and Steele 2010), some of which were of particular importance for Neolithic axehead production (e.g. Thirault 2005).
Mining was never the most widespread prehistoric procurement method. Acquiring flint from exposed outcrops and secondary deposits was almost the only strategy used during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, and continued to be the most common throughout the Neolithic and beyond. Even in regions where mining was practised, simple collection from surface exposures or from gravels was al
so carried out. Furthermore, not all known flint sources were mined (Barber et al. 1999, 26; Felder et al. 1998, 5; Field 2006, 81), and those that were were not always located where the best quality flint could be found (see for example Barber et al. 1999, 24).
In many cases flint could have been obtained more easily without digging mineshafts, yet mining still occurred. Buried seams may have had unique or specially desired properties, such as fewer flaws or larger nodules, but the specific properties of many mined flint sources seem not to have been too different from other accessible neighbouring sources. Without underestimating the importance of procurement and production techniques, it seems as if certain social factors had a decisive role in triggering mining actions, in some cases ensuring that once mining began, it continued for centuries.
THE TECHNIQUES AND SKILLS OF FLINT MINING
The basic sequence of activity carried out in every mine was frequently the same—digging, extracting the raw material, knapping, and managing the waste. Actual techniques could vary from site to site and, sometimes, from shaft to shaft, especially over time. Each flint mine required particular skills and strategic decision-making depending on the multiple social contexts under which those mines developed. Consequently, the methods and techniques used by Neolithic groups in mining for flint may allow us to approach the ways they deployed their labour, certain aspects of the quality of this labour, and only occasionally its quantity. They also provide clues about the knowledge and know-how that were transmitted through generations.
Mining structures
Whilst opencast quarrying of outcrops and shallow deposits was carried out, perhaps even as the first episodes of extraction at mining sites (Barber et al. 1999, 33), Neolithic flint mines are composed mainly of deep shafts that add considerably to the difficulty and risks involved in the process of raw material acquisition.
Four basic types of mining structures, usually occurring in various combinations, can be distinguished: shafts, pits, galleries, and chambers. Both shafts and pits are vertical structures, the main difference between them being their depth: 3m has been proposed as a way of distinguishing between them (Barber et al. 1999, 34–38), a useful distinction for the sake of clarity even if it has no interpretative value. To a considerable extent, the depth of any digging would have been dependent on the depth of the required flint seam. Occasionally, patterns can be found in some mines, where certain seams were preferred and their flint extensively mined, even though their access required cutting through other previous seams, left unexploited. Seams were worked from both pits and shafts, but the deeper shafts could also be utilized to allow more extensive exploitation of buried seams by excavating galleries or cavities.
Chambers and galleries are horizontal excavations. The former are irregular spaces of varied size which sometimes have pillars—unexcavated columns providing support for the ceiling. Some archaeologists have described this variability by distinguishing between niche, pillar, and chamber mines (Borkowski 1995; Migal 1997). Galleries are generally straight and elongated lateral workings of varying size, usually dug to exploit the desired flint seam or in order to facilitate movement between areas of extraction. They may spring from shafts, either at their base or wherever a suitable flint seam was encountered, and in the process they may connect chambers and shafts.
Although Neolithic mining structures across Europe can be made to fit into these four basic categories, or combinations of them, there is wide variety in both size and shape. The diameter of shafts can range from around 1m, as is the case at mines such as Arnhofen and Casa Montero (papers in Rind 2003; Capote et al. 2008) (Fig. 26.2), to as much as 12m at Grime’s Graves (Longworth and Varndell 1996). The depth of pits or shafts can range from 1.5 m to 16m, and may be determined not solely by the accessibility of flint seams but by the depth of the desired seam, as sometimes more accessible seams were ignored in order to exploit specific deeper ones. At Jablines the upper layer of flint was only marginally exploited due to its bad quality and mining took place mainly to exploit the inferior layer (Bostyn and Lanchon 1992, 133–134). In Camp-à-Cayaux, part of the mining complex of Spiennes, up to 15 flint layers were passed and ignored in order to access the flint seam the miners were seeking (Collet et al. 2008, 54).
FIG. 26.2. Excavating a deep ‘chimney’ shaft at the early Neolithic flint mine of Casa Montero (Spain). These shafts have an average diameter of little more than a metre and are up to 9m deep. There is barely enough space for a single person. Picture courtesy of the Casa Montero Project, CSIC.
Some galleries are big enough to allow a miner to stand upright, such as those at Petit-Spiennes (Collet et al. 2006, 68) (Fig. 26.3), whilst others can only be crawled through, such as some of those at Krzemionki, Defensola, or all of the known galleries at Rijckholt (Borkowski 1995; Felder et al. 1998). This variability can be associated with the different geological conditions at each mine, the technical decisions of the miners, and the size of the labour force involved in the digging process on each occasion. The geological context determines not only the disposition, depth, and size of flint seams, but also the hardness of the deposits being dug into and their relative stability or tendency to collapse. At Krzemionki, for example, four different types of extraction structures were devoted to the exploitation of the sloping layers of banded flint, at different depths and excavating different geological deposits (Borkowski 1995, 65–77).
FIG. 26.3. Extraction galleries from deep shafts at Camp-à-Cayaux in the mining complex of Spiennes (Belgium). These galleries range from 80cm to 1m high. Picture by Guy Focant, courtesy of the Public Service of Wallonia.
The number of persons working per mining structure would have depended on its size: narrow shafts such as those documented at the Spanish mine of Casa Montero allowed for only one person inside digging and extracting the raw material, whilst others could help from outside, hauling waste and flint, and handing the required tools (Capote et al. 2008). In the case of wider shafts such as those at Grime’s Graves, or of wide galleries such as in Petit-Spiennes, several miners would have been able to work within a single structure.
Mining kits
Since tasks performed at every mine were basically the same, consisting of excavation, flint nodule fragmentation, extraction, and waste disposal, mining toolkits frequently comprise a set of similar elements: excavation tools such as picks, sediment- and waste-removing tools such as spades or shovels, and flint-fracturing and extraction tools such as mallets, hammers, chisels, wedges, and levers. The main differences between European Neolithic flint mining toolkits relate both to the specific geological and environmental settings, and the particular cultural practices of each community. This resulted in different raw materials, morphologies, sizes, standardization, and time invested in tool manufacture. In some cases, mining tools appear rather expedient, requiring little or no preparation prior to use, whilst others were more sophisticated.
Most mining tools recovered to date are made from either bone or stone. Antler picks and levers have been documented at many mines, such as Krzemionki, Jablines, or Grime’s Graves (Borkowski et al. 1991; Bostyn and Lanchon 1992, 102–120; Clutton-Brock 1984). Stone implements like picks, hammerstones, or mallets are also abundant (Felder et al. 1998, 43–48; Galiberti 2005, 129–140; Collett et al. 2006, 69; 2008, 60–62), whilst the use of stone axes has been occasionally documented (Barber et al. 1999, 66). Many of these tools occasionally left marks on shafts and galleries (e.g. Bostyn and Lanchon 1992; Felder et al. 1998, 57–60; Barber et al. 1999, 66; Capote et al. 2008). Other implements made of perishable materials must have been used in mining activities but have left few or no traces. Ropes and baskets served to haul sediment and raw material from shafts, as evidence from Rijckholt suggests, where rope marks at shaft openings have been documented (Felder et al. 1998, 25–43). Wood was most probably used for digging sticks and hafting tools, whilst shovels may well have been made out of the same material.
Organization and planning
Flint
mining complexes across Europe represent the product of numerous mining events over time. During each one of them a number of structures were dug and work was organized in a certain way, with a specific degree of planning and a precise number of persons involved. Current interpretations of European flint mines tend to agree on the fact that mining was not practised in an ad hoc manner. Miners must have planned the procurement of tools in advance. Some scholars have estimated that around 400 antlers would have been necessary to dig just a single shaft at Grime’s Graves, whilst antlers had to be selected ahead of time, the majority of them cast from living rather than dead animals (Clutton-Brock 1984, 15–16). In other extensively excavated mines, such as Rijckholt, more than 14,000 picks and fragments made of local flint were recovered, occasionally hoarded inside the galleries (Felder et al. 1998, 47). All this evidence suggests that the considerable investment involved in the procurement and maintenance of mining tools must be taken into account when evaluating labour costs at each mining event.
Structures were dug at carefully selected spots, reflecting a general plan and knowledge of the location of previous workings, including those under the ground. Work was carried out with certain know-how, presumably acquired through experience and transmitted through practice from one generation to the next. Digging and extraction methods and other measures tended to follow similar patterns at every event, except for logical adaptations to differing geological circumstances and the disposition, quantity, and quality of flint seams.