What’s in a Hammerstone? Insights on Core Technology at a Neolithic Quarry in Southern Germany

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Stone shaping tools and hammerstones are among the most ancient and ubiquitous of stone implements in the archaeological record, but they are not commonly studied in detail in archaeological context. This poster presents results of a comparative study of chert objects that show percussion scars at a Neolithic chert quarry in southern Germany. Variation in the type, pervasiveness, and location of percussion scars suggests that chert hammerstones were used in several distinct ways in early stage lithic production. Distinctive marks of crushing, hammering, and splitting are interpreted, in the light of literature on experimental archaeology and our own limited experiments, as representing a combination of techniques for splitting large nodules and producing large flakes. We discuss this analysis of chert percussion objects at the quarry in context of a regional project combining surface survey, collections analysis, and test excavations to investigate upland Neolithic settlement and quarry features on the southeastern Swabian Alb, a significant regional source of chert. Comparisons to materials found in surface survey, including cores on large flakes, offer insights about patterns of local chert consumption. Results of this project contribute to an understanding of diversity in technological processes at quarries and settlements in the Central European Neolithic.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33255