Period: Stone Age - The Neolithic (5000 - 1700 BC)

Project titel: The Quest for Mysterious Polishes, Extracting, Processing and Using Fibres from Different Plant Materials Using Unretouched Blades and Quartiers D’orange.

Researcher: Annelou van Gijn og Annemieke Verbaas, Archaeologits, Leiden University, Holland.

Email: a.l.van.gijn(at)arch.leidenuniv.nl

Year: 2008

Research Problem:

Approximately 7000 years ago farming was first introduced in Europe. This has been proven by the existance of distinct polish on flint tools, which can only be created by cutting the straws of grainspecies. The scientist have gone backwards in the process and harvested grain with replicated flintseals, and it has become clear that it is possible to distinguish exactly which kind of grain was harvested and how it was cut.

But it was also discovered that not all traces of use on the flint are from harvesting grain. In North-eastern Europe several flinttools with an unidentified kind of poslish were found, the tools were clearly used for scraping in a transverse motion. We know how the polish on flinttools looks, but we need to discover what created them.

Therefore Dutch archaeologists Annelou van Gijn and Annemieke Verbaas will try to scrape on a variety of different plants in order to identify the use of the tools. There are strong indications that the tools have been used to produce fibres for string, rope or textile. They will therefore make fibres from different kinds of plants with copies of the original tools and test their qualities for spinning thread. Amoung other plants, fibres made of flax, stinging nettels and brambles will be tested. The fibres will be cooked in a “Stone Age chemical” like ashes, as this will perhaps give exactly the right kind of polish to the tools. Finally the copied tools will be compared with the 7000 year old originals.

Conclusion:

On Stone Age flint tools from around 4000 BC two use-wear polishes are commonly found which have not yet been replicated through experiments. The first is a very smooth and bright polish, and is clearly used in a transverse motion, which is common for the flint blades of the time. It is generally believed that plant materials generate this type of polish.

The other mysterious polish type is the infamous ‘polish 23’ which is mainly found on quartiers d’orange, a tool type which is common in the Linear Band Ceramic culture in the North-western part of Europe. These tools have an unretouched working edge with a thick angle and always display the same wear traces: one side displays a smooth and highly reflective polish, the other a rough and matt polish with abundant striations - or lines created by use. This tool too has definitely been used in a transverse motion.

During the experiment in 2008 we conducted the last series of experiments of a four-year project to replicate these two types of wear. Our focus lay on the quartiers d’orange and we conducted controlled experiments with working on flax and nettle fibres which had been boiled with different mineral substances. Like in the previous season the wear traces closely resemble those on the prehistoric tools but still do not match entirely. The fibres were subsequently scraped the way we had done in previous seasons. With respect to the blades we concentrated on debarking soft woods but this did not produce the characteristic wear traces, either. Thus the hunt for the mysterious polish continues.

Reference number HAF 10/08