Long blades and Phantom Cores: A Case of Long-Distance Stone Tool Refitting (Southern Norway)

ABSTRACT

The paper presents a lithic case study applying refitting and technological analysis on two long-blade deposits discovered 82 km apart in southernmost Norway. With reference to previous research on Neolithic long blades in southern Scandinavia, it is proposed that the assemblages belong to the late Middle Neolithic chronozone (2800–2350 cal. bc), i.e. the period preceding the introduction of a predominantly agrarian economy in southern Norway. Analyses identified one minimal analytical nodule (MAN) and a single reduction sequence. Blades had been produced by the use of multiple techniques: indirect percussion and direct percussion on what would have been a cylindrical- shaped core. The combination of long-blade production and the cylindrical- core concept has only been identified in contexts related to the Pitted Ware Complex in western Sweden, at the island Anholt in Kattegat, and on northern Jutland. Thus, it is argued that the two long-blade assemblages from southernmost Norway represent evidence of cross-cultural, long-distance travels among the last Neolithic foraging cultures in southern Norway southern Scandinavia.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Neolithic
• long blades
• refitting
• hunter-gatherers
• Scandinavia

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for constructive critique in the final editing process. I would also like to express my gratitude to Synnøve Viken for thoughtful comments at an early stage of this ongoing research, and for a thorough proofreading of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Svein Vatsvåg Nielsen The author has a MA degree in prehistoric archaeology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and is currently working with Stone Age research and excavations at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo.

ORCID

Svein Vatsvåg Nielsen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2243-9159