Period: Late Neolithic to Bronze Age (c. 2400-500 BC)

Project title: Høstforsøg. Afprøvning af segle

Researcher: Helle Juel Jensen, lecturer, Århus University, Denmark

E-mail: farkhjj(at)hum.au.dk

Year: 2002

Abstract:

Artefacts from prehistoric times have often been assigned a particular function because their form reminds us of a modern tool. This also applies to the so-called sickles. By using wear-trace analysis, in which changes in the surface of the flint are studied under the microscope, it was demonstrated some years ago that a particular type of flint implement from an early part of the Neolithic had been used to cut cereals and was accordingly a sickle. Now research work is continuing with documentation of the use of pressure-flaked sickles from the latter part of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.

Reference number: HAF 14/02