Flint from the Western trench and Trial trench

Western trench

The recorded flint from the Western trench consists of 1219 individual finds in 534 records. An overview of the finds can be found in fig 1.

Fig. 1. Numbers and types of finds from the Western trench

The finds consist of both formal tools and lithic remains from the knapping process. The most abundant find types in the Western trench are microflakes (64,6%), debitage (14,9%) and flakes (11,8%). The remaining finds from the trench consist of small microflakes, blades, microblades, cores, points, scrapers and axe fragments.

Cores and blades are two types of lithic remains that are good indicators of knapping technique used at a site. The most abundant core type found in the Western trench is the bipolar core (14/16), which shows that bipolar technique is one of the knapping techniques used at the pile dwelling. The presence of blades and flakes with knapping platforms found in the trench show that a platform technique was also used.

There are 45 finds (3,7%) with polished surface, 9 finds (0,7%) with retouch (here excluding artefacts with obvious retouch, such as scrapers) and 2 finds (0,2%) with both retouch and polished surface. Plenty of flints from the Western trench are burnt, in total 42% when microflakes are included. When the microflakes are excluded 93 flint fragments are burnt, which amounts to 25%. The most commonly burnt type of remain are the microflakes, of which 47% are burnt.

Two types of flint were present in the material from the trench, Senonian flint and Danien flint. The origin of 698 pieces (57%) of the flint from the trench could be determined and they consist of 467 pieces of Senonian flint and 231 pcs of Danian flint. Cortex was found on 9 fragments.

Trial trench:

The recorded flint from the Trial trench consists of 61 individual finds in 44 records. An overview of the finds can be found in fig 2.

Fig. 2. Numbers and types of finds from the Trial trench

The finds mainly consist of lithic remains from the knapping process and very few formal tools were found. The material is far less abundant than that of the western trench and most of the finds are microflakes (49,2%) and debitage (29,5%). There are also low numbers of flakes, blades, scrapers, an axe fragment and a microblade.

 

Most of the finds lack polished surfaces or retouch (90,2%). The remaining finds have polished surfaces (9,8%). A large portion of flints were burnt, in total 20% when microflakes are included. When microflakes are excluded, 35% of the finds are burnt. The debitage is the most commonly burnt artefact type.

Out of all flint from the Trial trench, the origin of 43 flints were determined (70,5%). These consisted of 23 pieces of Senonian flint and 20 pcs of Danien flint. Naturally rounded flint sides were found on one find.

Discussion and observations:

The flints from the Western trench and Trial trench will here be discussed collectively. Comparisons between the trenches would be problematic due to the varying amounts of lithics in them, 1219 in the Western trench and only 61 in the Trial trench.

Flint is not found locally in the area around Alvastra. The Senonian and Danien flints found in the discussed trenches are imported from southern and south-western Scandinavia. High-quality flints were usually exported as axe preforms from areas with large amounts of flint to areas further north in Scandinavia (Burenhult 1999: 274). The low amounts of cortex found on the flints from the discussed trenches indicate that the early stages of the production chain (chaîne opératoire) were performed somewhere else. These early stages of production involve initial testing of raw material and primary stages of core preparation, which are activities that would result in debitage with cortex. Relating to this are also the relatively high amounts of polished surface on the flints. Polished axes, and fragments of such, are common during the Middle Neolithic in the area and have been found to a high degree at the pile dwelling. The high amounts of polished surface on the flints could therefore be an indication that the flint was imported to the pile dwelling as polished axes and further reworked into other tools and blanks on site. This type of behaviour has been observed on Early Neolithic sites, such as Frotorp in Närke and Trössla in Södermanland as well as on Middle Neolithic blade finds from Västergötland (Knutsson 2007). It has been suggested that blade production from axes could provide a similar result as blade production from cylindrical blade cores (Knutsson 1995 and listed sources). The use of axes as a base for blade production could also explain the absence of cylindrical blade cores in these trenches, which are otherwise a common feature in Middle Neolithic materials and materials connected to the Pitted ware tradition. However, Browall (2011: 181) mentions that 16 (of which 9 are defined as “uncertain”) cylindrical blade cores were found during Frödin’s excavations. This shows the necessity to compare the material from Malmer’s excavations to the material excavated by Frödin.

The presence of small, extensively used, bipolar cores from these trenches suggest that the flint was used to its maximum, something which is usually seen on sites where flint is not found locally. Bipolar technique is also a beneficial technique to switch to when a flint core (of another kind) is becoming too small for the flint knapper to hold in the hand. The technique, however, tends to result in a larger amount of unusable flakes/debitage and therefore it is often used as the last step before discarding the core (Eriksen 2000: 43).

In both trenches the most abundant find types are microflakes and debitage. These remains are created as by-products during the knapping of blanks, such as blades and flakes, as well as in the production of flint tools such as scrapers, points and axes. The large number of microflakes and debitage in these trenches shows that blanks and tools were produced at the Alvastra pile dwelling. An especially high number of finds were found in the north-western part of the western trench, in square x229/y407. In this square alone, 397 finds were found. 311 of those finds are microflakes. This concentration could be the remnants of a knapping floor, or possibly a place where the remains of a knapping session were dumped. However, further studies are needed in order to investigate the spatial organisation of the pile dwelling.

The burning of flint artefacts, including axes, has been described as a common activity during the Neolithic (Larsson 2000a; 2000b; 2011). Flint axes and fragments from sites such as Kverrestad and Svartskylle show signs of being deliberately burnt in their final stages of the operational chain, or chaîne opératoire (Ibid.). Large amounts of flints at Alvastra (20-35% of artefacts, excl. microflakes) are burnt, which could be a result of deliberate burning as in the above-mentioned cases. Further studies would have to be done to investigate this.

Text: Sandra Söderlind

---

The following references cited on this page have no web links:

Burenhult, G., 1999. Arkeologi I Norden 1. Natur och kultur. Stockholm.

Eriksen, B.V. (ed)., 2000. En håndbog I systematiske analyser af flintinventarer. Aarhus Universitetsforlag.

Knutsson, H., 1995. Slutvandrat? Aspekter på övergången från rörlig till bofast tillvaro. Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis. Uppsala universitet.

Larsson, L., 2000a. The passage of axes: fire transformation of flint objects in the Neolithic of southern Sweden. Antiquity. Vol. 74 (2000): 602-610.

Larsson, L., 2000b. Axes and Fire – Contacts with the Gods. In: Olausson, D. & Vandkilde, H. (eds.) Form, Function & Context. Material culture in Scandinavian archaeology. Almqvist & Wiksell International:93-103.

Larsson, L., 2011.  Water and fire as transformation elements in ritual deposits of the Scandinavian Neolithic. Documenta Praehistorica, XXXVIII, s. 69-82.