Stone Age, play_circle_outlineprehistoric cultural stage, or level of human development, characterized by the creation and use of stone tools. The Stone Age, whose origin coincides with the discovery of the oldest known stone tools, which have been dated to some 3.3 million years ago, is usually divided into three separate periods—Paleolithic Period, Mesolithic Period, and Neolithic Period—based on the degree of sophistication in the fashioning and use of tools.
Paleolithic archaeology is concerned with the origins and development of early human culture between the first appearance of man as a tool-using mammal (which is believed to have occurred about 600,000 or 700,000 years ago) and about 8000 bce (near the beginning of the Holocene Epoch [11,700 years ago to the present]). It is included in the time span of the Pleistocene, or Glacial, Epoch—an interval lasting from about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago. Modern evidence suggests that the earliest protohuman forms had diverged from the ancestral primate stock by the beginning of the Pleistocene. In any case, the oldest recognizable tools were found in rock layers of Middle Pliocene Epoch (some 3.3 million years ago), raising the possibility that toolmaking began with Australopithecus or its contemporaries. During the Pleistocene, which followed directly after the Pliocene, a series of momentous climatic events occurred. The northern latitudes and mountainous areas were subjected on four successive occasions to the advances and retreats of ice sheets (known as Günz, Mindel, Riss, and Würm in the Alps), river valleys and terraces were formed, the present coastlines were established, and great changes were induced in the fauna and flora of the globe. In large measure, the development of culture during Paleolithic times seems to have been profoundly influenced by the environmental factors that characterize the successive stages of the Pleistocene Epoch.
Throughout the Paleolithic, man was a food gatherer, depending for his subsistence on hunting wild animals and birds, fishing, and collecting wild fruits, nuts, and berries. The artifactual record of this exceedingly long interval is very incomplete; it can be studied from such imperishable objects of now-extinct cultures as were made of flint, stone, bone, and antler. These alone have withstood the ravages of time, and, together with the remains of contemporary animals hunted by our prehistoric forerunners, they are all that scholars have to guide them in attempting to reconstruct human activity throughout this vast interval—approximately 98 percent of the time span since the appearance of the first true hominin stock. In general, these materials develop gradually from single, all-purpose tools to an assemblage of varied and highly specialized types of artifacts, each designed to serve in connection with a specific function. Indeed, it is a process of increasingly more complex technologies, each founded on a specific tradition, that characterizes the cultural development of Paleolithic times. In other words, the trend was from simple to complex, from a stage of nonspecialization to stages of relatively high degrees of specialization, just as has been the case during historic times.
In the manufacture of stone implements, four fundamental traditions were developed by the Paleolithic ancestors: (1) pebble-tool traditions; (2) bifacial-tool, or hand-ax, traditions; (3) flake-tool traditions; and (4) blade-tool traditions. Only rarely are any of these found in “pure” form, and this fact has led to mistaken notions in many instances concerning the significance of various assemblages. Indeed, though a certain tradition might be superseded in a given region by a more advanced method of producing tools, the older technique persisted as long as it was needed for a given purpose. In general, however, there is an overall trend in the order as given above, starting with simple pebble tools that have a single edge sharpened for cutting or chopping. But no true pebble-tool horizons had yet, by the late 20th century, been recognized in Europe. In southern and eastern Asia, on the other hand, pebble tools of primitive type continued in use throughout Paleolithic times.
French place-names have long been used to designate the various Paleolithic subdivisions, since many of the earliest discoveries were made in France. This terminology has been widely applied in other countries, notwithstanding the very great regional differences that do in fact exist. But the French sequence still serves as the foundation of Paleolithic studies in other parts of the Old World.
There is reasonable agreement that the Paleolithic ended with the beginning of the Holocene geologic and climatic era about 11,700 bce. It is also increasingly clear that a developmental bifurcation in man’s culture history took place at about this time. In most of the world, especially in the temperate and tropical woodland environments or along the southern fringes of Arctic tundra, the older Upper Paleolithic traditions of life were simply readapted toward more or less increasingly intensified levels of food collection. These cultural readaptations of older food procedures to the variety and succession of post-Pleistocene environments are generally referred to as occurring in the Mesolithic Period. But also by 8000 bce (if not even somewhat earlier) in certain semi-arid environments of the world’s middle latitudes, traces of a quite different course of development began to appear. These traces indicate a movement toward incipient agriculture and (in one or two instances) animal domestication. In the case of southwestern Asia, this movement had already culminated in a level of effective village-farming communities by 7000 bce. In Mesoamerica, a comparable development—somewhat different in its details and without animal domestication—was taking place almost as early. It may thus be maintained that in the environmentally favourable portions of southwestern Asia, Mesoamerica, the coastal slopes below the Andes, and perhaps in southeastern Asia (for which little evidence is available), little if any trace of the Mesolithic stage need be anticipated. The general level of culture probably shifted directly from that of the Upper Paleolithic to that of incipient cultivation and domestication.
The picture presented by the culture history of the earlier portion of the Holocene Period is thus one of two generalized developmental patterns: (1) the cultural readaptations to post-Pleistocene environments on a more or less intensified level of food collection; and (2) the appearance and development of an effective level of food production. It is generally agreed that this latter appearance and development was achieved quite independently in various localities in both the Old and New Worlds. As the procedures and the plant or animal domesticates of this new food-producing level gained effectiveness and flexibility to adapt to new environments, the new level expanded at the expense of the older, more conservative one. Finally, it is only within the matrix of a level of food production that any of the world’s civilizations have been achieved.
Three major subdivisions—Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic—are recognized in Europe. Although the dividing line between the Lower and Middle stages is not so clearly defined as that separating the Middle and Upper subdivisions, this system is still used by most workers.
On the basis of the very rich materials from the Somme Valley in the north of France and the Thames Valley in the south of England, two main Lower Paleolithic traditons have been recognized in western Europe. These are as follows: (1) bifacial-tool, or hand-ax, traditions (Abbevillian and Acheulean); and (2) flake-tool traditions (Clactonian and Levalloisian).
The type tools of the Abbevillian (formerly Chellean), which takes its name from the town of Abbeville, France, on the 45-metre (150-foot) terrace of the Somme Valley, consist of pointed, bifacial implements, or hand axes. Their forms vary, and the flaking is generally irregular; it is probable that they were manufactured either with a stone hammer or on a stone anvil. Associated with these crude types of hand axes, simple flake tools are found, but they lack definite form. The Abbevillian has been reported from deposits of lower Pleistocene (First Interglacial) age.
The Acheulean, which begins in the Second Interglacial and persists to the close of the Third Interglacial, covers by far the longest time span of any of the Paleolithic traditions found in western Europe. The type site is on the 30-metre terrace of the Somme Valley at St. Acheul, near Amiens, in northern France. Acheulean hand axes, which display a marked technological refinement over their Abbevillian precursors, were apparently made by employing a wooden or bone billet rather than the more primitive stone-on-stone technique. But, except at the very end of the Acheulean cycle of development, there is very little typological difference in the types of hand axes found in the various layers.
The Micoquian, or Final (Upper) Acheulean, is characterized by elongated hand axes that exhibit very straight and finely chipped edges, in marked contrast with the Lower Acheulean, in which ovate forms predominate. Flake tools occur in all Acheulean levels, the side scrapers being the predominant type. Many of these tools were made from trimming flakes produced during the process of hand-ax manufacture. In general, flake tools, including points with a triangular cross section, are found in greater quantities in Micoquian deposits than in the older horizons.
The evidence from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, and Swanscombe, Kent, in the Thames Valley of southeastern England clearly shows that the main development of the Clactonian occurred during early Second Interglacial times. The type artifacts are flakes, although core tools—single-edged choppers and chopping tools—do in fact occur. The flakes, which have large, high-angle (greater than 90°), plain striking platforms, as well as prominent bulbs of percussion, were detached from roughly prepared, discoidal cores by the stone-hammer or stone-anvil technique. Actual retouching or secondary working of the edge is found in some instances, but for the most part it is crude, and edge chipping resulting from use is far more characteristic.
Named after a locality at Levallois, a suburb of Paris, the Levalloisian is primarily a flake tradition, although hand axes are found in certain of the Middle and Upper Levalloisian stages. It first appears in deposits of the late Second Interglacial in association with hand axes of Middle Acheulean type and persists into Fourth Glacial (Würm) times. It is characterized by a new and improved method of producing flakes, which previously had been obtained in a more or less haphazard manner. This involves the careful shaping of the core by the removal of centrally directed flakes, and the preparation of an extremity for the detachment of a symmetrical oval flake. Since unstruck cores of this type exhibit a plano-convex section suggesting the form of a tortoise, they are known as tortoise cores. On the striking platforms of typical levallois flakes, small vertical flake scars, called facets, may be observed, and the scars of the converging core-preparation flakes are present on the upper surface. The use of this technique resulted in the production not only of symmetrical flakes but also of larger ones in proportion to the size of the core. In the Middle and Upper Levalloisian a variation of this same basic technique was developed whereby it was possible to produce either triangular flakes (or points) or rectangular flakes (or flake blades) by modifying the method of core preparation.
The Middle Paleolithic comprises the Mousterian, a portion of the Levalloisian, and the Tayacian, all of which are complexes based on the production of flakes, although survivals of the old hand-ax tradition are manifest in many instances. These Middle Paleolithic assemblages first appear in deposits of the third interglacial and persist during the first major oscillation of the Fourth Glacial (Würm) stage. Associated with the Tayacian, in which the artifacts consist of very crude flakes, remains of modern man (Homo sapiens) have been found. Mousterian man, on the other hand, is of the Neanderthal race. By the 1960s no human remains had yet been found associated with the Levalloisian. It is in the Mousterian levels of the caves and rock shelters of central and southern France that the earliest evidence of the use of fire and the first definite burials have been discovered in western Europe. The cave of Le Moustier, near Les Eyzies in the classic Dordogne region of France, is the type site of the Mousterian. The typology of the artifacts is complex; it consists of three distinct increments: (1) the prepared striking-platform–tortoise-core (Levalloisian) tradition; (2) the plain striking-platform–discoidal-core technique of ultimate Clactonian tradition; and (3) a persistence of the bifacial core tool, or Acheulean tradition. The type artifacts from the Mousterian consist of points and side scrapers, in addition to a few hand axes (especially heart- or triangular-shaped forms), and the secondary working is coarse. A crude bone industry appears here for the first time. Judging by what is known concerning modern hunting groups, small bands or tribes of people already had developed simple social institutions, even at this early level of development.
The Upper Paleolithic, which occupies only approximately one-tenth of the time span of the period as a whole, first appears in horizons referable to the Würm I–II interstadial, and it persists to the very end of late Glacial times. Early man made his greatest cultural progress at this time. The hand axes and flake tools of the earlier assemblages were replaced by diversified and specialized tools made on blades struck from specially prepared cores. Many important inventions appeared, such as needles and thread, skin clothing, hafted stone and bone tools, the harpoon, the spear thrower, and special fishing equipment. Bone, ivory, and antler, in addition to flint, were extensively used. The earliest man-made dwellings are found, consisting of semisubterranean pit houses. Of prime importance and interest is the beginning of the basic techniques of drawing, modelling, sculpture, and painting, as well as the earliest manifestations of dancing, music, the use of masks, ceremonies, and the organization of society into patterns that were apparently fairly complex. Indeed, the location of certain settlements suggests a more complex social life, including perhaps collective hunting. There is evidence for fertility magic, private property, and possible social stratification. Furthermore, primitive types of early man disappeared, and the remains of men of modern type (Homo sapiens) alone are found in Upper Paleolithic sites.
The chronology of this interval in western Europe shows a succession of cultures known as Lower Périgordian (or Châtelperronian; formerly Lower Aurignacian), Aurignacian, Upper Périgordian (or Gravettian; formerly Upper Aurignacian), Solutrean, and Magdalenian, each characterized by its distinctive types of artifacts. These latter occur, together with gravers (or burins), end scrapers, points, etc., which are common to all levels. The graver itself is a very important tool, for its invention made possible the extensive working of bone and facilitated the development of art. The climate of the Upper Paleolithic varied from cold steppe, or even Arctic tundra, to north temperate (taiga), similar to parts of Siberia and Canada of the present day.
In the Périgordian, named after a region in south central France, blades with steeply retouched backs are typical. The Lower Périgordian is characterized by large curved points with blunted backs that are known as Châtelperron points. These first appear, together with other types of blade tools, in horizons immediately overlying Upper Mousterian levels. It is believed that the straight points with blunted backs, called Gravette points and characteristic of the Upper Périgordian, were evolved from the Châtelperron type. In the final stage of the Upper Périgordian, tanged Font Robert points and diminutive multiangle gravers, known as the Noailles burin, are found. A number of small sculptured human torsos depicting the female form have been found at Upper Périgordian sites.
The type site of the Aurignacian is near the village of Aurignac (Haute-Garonne) in southern France. At many sites it is found intervening between horizons referable to the Lower and the Upper Périgordian, a fact that is considered to indicate that more than one cultural element was present in western Europe at the beginning of Upper Paleolithic times. The tool types include various kinds of steep-ended scrapers, nose scrapers, blades with heavy marginal retouch, strangulated blades, busked gravers (or burins), and split-base bone points. Bone was extensively used, mainly for javelin points, chisels, perforators, and bâtons de commandement, or arrow straighteners. Articles of personal adornment, probably worn as necklaces, such as pierced teeth and shells, as well as decorated bits of bone and ivory, appear for the first time in the Aurignacian.
The oldest manifestations of art were produced during the Aurignacian, and the development continued during Upper Périgordian times. In general, Upper Paleolithic art falls into two closely related categories: mural art and portable art. The former includes finger tracings, paintings, engravings, bas-reliefs, and sculptures on the walls of caves and rock shelters; the latter is characterized by small engravings and sculptures on stone and bone found in the occupation layers. The whole development almost certainly owes its inspiration to the magico-religious idea, especially the custom of hunting magic as practiced today by living primitive peoples.
The Solutrean, which is named after the site of Solutré, near Mâcon (Saône-et-Loire), is noted for the beautifully made, symmetrical, bifacially flaked, laurel-leaf, and shouldered points, the finest examples of flint workmanship of the Paleolithic in western Europe. In addition, the usual types of gravers, end scrapers, points, perforators, etc., are present. Examples of Solutrean art are comparatively rare; they consist of sculpture in low relief and incised stone slabs. The fauna indicates that this culture flourished in a relatively cold climate.
The rock shelter of La Madeleine, near Les Eyzies (Dordogne), is the type Magdalenian locality. This final culture of the Upper Paleolithic is noted for the dominance of bone and antler tools over those of flint and stone and for the very remarkable works of art that were produced at this time. The wide variety of bone tools include javelin points, barbed bone points (or harpoons), eyed needles, bâtons de commandement (often elaborately decorated), perforators, spear throwers, chisels, etc. The flint and stone tools include a variety of special forms, among which small geometric forms, denticulated blades, scrapers with steeply retouched edges, and the parrot-beak graver are especially distinctive. The six phases of the Magdalenian have been established stratigraphically and are characterized mainly by the contained bone and antler implements. But the heights attained by the people responsible for this culture can best be evaluated on the basis of the art objects they produced. Magdalenian sites have yielded countless fine examples of both mural and portable art. Animals of the period, the usual subject matter, are portrayed in paintings (often polychrome), engravings, and sculptures. The fauna from the various Magdalenian horizons demonstrates that cold conditions prevailed in western Europe at the end of Paleolithic times.
In the Upper Paleolithic of Europe, certain evidence exists for what must have already been well-organized collective-hunting activities, such as the horse-stampede traces of Solutré, France, and the great concentrations of mammoth bones of the Gravettian hut settlements of Czechoslovakia and Russia. Cultural adaptations appear to have been made to restricted local areas or niches and to the fluctuations of climate and environment during the changing phases at the end of the Pleistocene range of time. In fact, it could be maintained generally that Upper Paleolithic traditions flowed rather smoothly into the Mesolithic, with no more significant indication of cultural development than further environmental readaptations. The people of the Mesolithic stage, or level of development, can be said to have “changed just enough so that they would not have to change.”
The level of intensified food-collecting cultures of the early Holocene Period in the Old World is best known from northwestern Europe, and it is with regard to this area that the term Mesolithic has greatest currency to denominate archaeological traces. A classic example of such traces comes from the Maglemose bog site of Denmark, although there are comparable materials ranging from England to the eastern Baltic lands. These bogs were probably more or less swampy lakes in Mesolithic times. At about 6000 bce, when the Maglemosian culture flourished, traces of primitive huts with bark-covered floors have been found. Flint axes for felling trees and adzes for working wood have appeared, as well as a variety of smaller flint tools, including a great number of microlithic scale. These were mounted as points or barbs in arrows and harpoons and were also used in other composite tools. There were adzes and chisels of antler or bone, besides needles and pins, fish-hooks, harpoons, and several-pronged fish spears. Some larger tools, of ground stone (e.g., club heads) have appeared. Wooden implements also have survived because of the unusually favourable preservative qualities of the bogs; bows, arrow shafts, ax handles, paddles, and even a dugout canoe have been discovered. Fishnets were made of bark fibre. There is good evidence that the Maglemosian sites were only seasonally occupied. Deer were successfully hunted, and fish and waterfowl were taken, and it appears possible that several varieties of marsh plants were utilized. At Star Carr, in northern England, there are indications that four or five huts existed in the settlement, with a population of about 25 people.
This description of the Maglemosian must suffice to represent a considerable variety of European manifestations of the level of intensified post-Pleistocene food collecting. The catalogs of the Azilian and Tardenoisian industries of western Europe, of the Ahrensburgian of northern Germany, of the Asturian of Spain, etc., would each differ in detail, but all would point in the same general direction as regards cultural-historical interpretation.
As a further and far-distant example, the Nachikufan culture of southern Zimbabwe might be cited. Here again, microlithic flint bladelet tools, with certain types mounted as projectile points or in composite tools, existed. The Nachikufan cave walls show a few seminaturalistic drawings, and the caves also contain “pencils” of red and black pigment. Ground-stone axes and adzes, bored stones (digging-stick weights?), and normal-sized chopping and scraping tools of chipped stone also occurred. Grindstones of various types indicate a degree of dependence on collected vegetable foods, and the animal bones suggest specialization in the hunting of zebras, wildebeests, hartebeests, and wild pigs. These Nachikufan materials date back to at least 4500 bce. Again, an intensified level of food collecting is implied.
The general picture
Though there are vast gaps in our knowledge of the Holocene Period in many parts of the Old World, enough is known to see the general cultural level of this range of time. Outside of the regions where food production was establishing itself, the period was one of a gradual settling-in and of an increasingly intensive utilization of all the resources of restricted regional niches. At first, the level seems nowhere to have achieved a climax of artistic expression, such as that for example, of Upper Périgordian–Magdalenian times. But, as time went on, certain climaxes within the matrix of an intensified level of food collection did occur. An often-cited example might be the complex art and social organization of the cultures of the northwest coast of British Columbia.
More often, however, as the culture history of the Holocene Period proceeded, cultures at the level of intensified food collecting were “captured” by being absorbed within an expanding matrix of the new elements, procedures, and traditions of food production or—subsequent to its appearance—by the expansion of civilized societies.
The origins and history of European Neolithic culture are closely connected with the postglacial climate and forest development. The increasing temperature after the late Dryas period during the Pre-Boreal and the Boreal (c. 8000–5500 bce, determined by radiocarbon dating) caused a remarkable change in late glacial flora and fauna. Thus, the Mediterranean zone became the centre of the first cultural modifications leading from the last hunters and food gatherers to the earliest farmers. This was established by some important excavations in the mid-20th century in the Middle East, which unearthed the first stages of early agriculture and stock breeding (7th and 6th millennia bce) with wheat, barley, dogs, sheep, and goats. Early prepottery Neolithic finds (probably 6th millennium bce) have been made in the Argissa Magula near Larissa (Thessaly, Greece), while excavations in Lepenski Vir (Balkan Peninsula) have brought to light some sculptures of the same period. The independent origin of European Neolithic was established, and it was thought highly probable that the cradle of farming in the Middle East had not been the only one: there were others in Europe, too.
Neolithic farming in Europe developed on its own lines in the four different ecological zones. These are: the Mediterranean zone of evergreen forest and winter rains; north of the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Balkans, the temperate zone of deciduous forest and evenly distributed annual rainfall; still farther north the circumpolar taiga, or coniferous forest (the only zone to remain free of agriculture and stock breeding); and to the southeast the western end of the Eurasian Steppe. Each zone itself is subdivided into natural regions by physiographic boundaries and peculiarities of climate or soil. Only the three major divisions of the temperate zone are not obvious from every map. We may distinguish: western Europe, from the Atlantic to the Vosges and Alps and including the British Isles; the loesslands of central Europe, including the Ukraine and limited by the Balkans and the Harz; and the northern province, that portion of the Eurasiatic plain lying between the Rhine and the Vistula and including Denmark and southern Sweden. The substantial Neolithic communities that arose by 6000 bce must have been largely recruited from indigenous Mesolithic hunters and fishers, attested to so abundantly in western and northern Europe by various remains. (Some communities indeed seem to be composed entirely of such Mesolithic stocks, though they had adopted a Neolithic equipment from immigrant farmers; such are sometimes termed Secondary Neolithic. From these Mesolithic survivors, too, must be derived much of the science and equipment applied in Neolithic times to adapting societies to European environments. Upon the resultant distinctively European technology and economy was reared a no less original ideological superstructure expressed in distinctive sepulchral monuments, styles of ceramic decoration, and fashions in personal ornaments.
In each of the above-mentioned provinces, the archaeological record begins with the early stages of farming, as in Thessaly. In the Mediterranean zone, this early farming is connected with the cardium pottery (decorated by shell impressions of Cardium edule), cultivation of the land having been proved by pollen-analytical methods in France, as elsewhere in temperate Europe, while northern Germany and southern Scandinavia revealed grain prints in potsherds (Ertebølle-Ellerbek). The process of cultural formation and modification during the Neolithic may be studied with the help of the different kinds of pottery and stone artifacts.
Save in the taiga, where a Mesolithic economy persisted until the end of the Bronze Age, the basis of life everywhere was subsistence farming, supplemented by some measure of hunting and fishing—fish being a source of food curiously neglected in western and central Europe during the earlier phases of the Neolithic. Everywhere the same cereals were cultivated, together with beans, peas, and lentils. In the Mediterranean zone, orchard husbandry may already have begun, while around the Alps, apples were eventually cultivated and utilized for the preparation of a sort of cider. The balance between cultivation and stock breeding varied. Throughout the temperate zone, sheep, though bred even in Britain and Denmark, were at first rare. The damp temperate forests were uncongenial to these animals, and only toward the end of the Neolithic Period, when the greater dryness of the subboreal climatic phase and incipient clearing for plow cultivation were leaving their mark on the landscape, did flocks begin to multiply. On the loesslands, in early Neolithic times, animal husbandry may have played a subordinate role as compared with agriculture. But in the sequel, cattle raising combined with hunting proved to be the most productive pursuit among the deciduous forests with a Neolithic equipment; cultivation was relegated to an increasingly secondary place, until in the late Bronze Age more efficient tools for clearing land became generally available. The rural economy permitted the continuous occupation of permanent villages around the Aegean and in the Balkan Peninsula, perhaps also in southern Italy and the Iberian Peninsula. In the temperate zone, shifting cultivation may have been based on slash-and-burn clearance. Under this extravagant system, plots were presumably tilled with hoes, as in parts of Africa today. But by the beginning of the Bronze Age, the ox-drawn plow was beginning to replace the hoe.
Dwelling houses in Greece, Sicily, and the Iberian Peninsula were built, as in the Middle East, of pisé, or mud brick, on stone foundations. But in the Balkans and throughout the temperate zone, wood was used for the construction of gabled houses, stout posts serving to support the ridgepole and the walls of split saplings or wattle and daub. The earliest houses on the loessland of central Europe were very large, up to 42 metres (135 feet) in length and large enough to accommodate a whole lineage or small clan together with stalled cattle and grain stores. In the sequel these communal houses gave place to smaller two-roomed dwellings, 7.5 to 10 metres (24 1/2 to 33 feet) long but still entered through one end. Finally in late Neolithic times clusters of one-roomed huts became the most widespread fashion. Around the Alps such two-roomed houses and, less often, one-roomed huts were raised on piles above the shores of lakes or on platforms laid on peat mosses. These are the world-famous Swiss “lake-dwellings” (Uferrandsiedlungen) that have yielded such precious collections of the organic substances from wood to bread that are otherwise missing from the archaeological record. In northern Europe, too, the earliest villages consisted of two parallel, long communal houses, but these were subdivided by cross walls into 20 or more apartments, each with a separate door. But here again the communal houses eventually broke up into free-standing one-roomed huts. Finally, Skara Brae on the treeless island of Orkney illustrates an ingenious adaptation of the one-roomed wooden hut to an inhospitable environment but shows how commodiously such huts must always have been furnished.
Carpenters used celts (ax or adz heads) edged by grinding and polishing of fine-grained rock or of flint where that material was available in large nodules. In Greece and the Balkans, all over central Europe and the Ukraine, and throughout the taiga, adzes were used exclusively, as in the earlier Baltic Mesolithic; in northern and western Europe axes were preferred. In the Iberian Peninsula axes and adzes occur in equal numbers in early Neolithic graves, but the proportion of axes increased later. Often in western Europe, and occasionally in Greece and Cyprus, celts were mounted with the aid of antler sleeves inserted between the stone head and the wooden handle—a device that was already employed in the northern European Mesolithic. In Spain, the British Isles, and northern Europe axheads were simply stuck into or through straight wooden shafts, but adz heads must always have been mounted on a knee shaft (a crooked stick), a method regularly used for axheads, too, by the Bronze Age. Axheads like those in modern use, with a hole for the shaft, were rarely used for tools, but the Danubian peasants on the loesslands may sometimes have mounted adzes in this manner. They certainly knew how to perforate stone, using a tubular borer (a reed or bone with sand as an abrasive). From them the technique was adopted by various secondary Neolithic tribes in northern Europe for the manufacture of so-called battle-axes. The latter seem to derive their form from Mesolithic weapons of antler, but their splayed blades disclose the influence of metal forms.
Celts, or axes, were manufactured in factories where specially suitable rock outcrops occurred, and they were traded over great distances. Products of the factories at Graig Lwyd, Penmaenmawr, North Wales, were transported to Wiltshire and Anglesey, those of Tievebulliagh on the Antrim coast to Limerick, Kent, Aberdeen, and the Hebrides. Similarly, large nodules of good flint were secured by mining in Poland, Denmark, The Netherlands, England, Belgium, France, Portugal, and Sicily.
The mine shafts, which were cut through solid chalk sometimes to a depth of six metres (20 feet) with the aid only of antler picks and bone shovels, may be simple pits, but often regular galleries branching from them follow the seams of big nodules. Although the ancient miners appreciated the necessity of leaving pillars to support the roof, skeletons of workers killed by falls have been discovered at Cissbury, Spiennes, and elsewhere. In the British Isles and Denmark, at least, there is evidence that the ax factories and flint mines were exploited and the products distributed by trade, for example, to the northern parts of Sweden. Still, the operators and distributors need nowhere be regarded as full-time specialists.
Neolithic art, except among the hunter-fishers of the taiga, was geometric and not representational. It is best illustrated by the decoration of pottery. Pots, which were always handmade, were painted in southeastern Europe, southern Italy, and Sicily; elsewhere they were adorned with incised, impressed, or stamped patterns. Many designs are skeuomorphic—i.e., they enhance the pot’s similarity to vessels of basketry, skin, or other material. But on the loesslands of central Europe and the Ukraine and in the Balkans, spirals and meanders were favourite motifs (see photograph).
While Neolithic societies could be completely self-sufficient, growing their own food and making all essential equipment from local materials, luxury objects were transmitted quite long distances by some sort of trade. So ornaments made of the shells of the Mediterranean mussel, Spondylus gaederopus, are found all across the Balkans, up the Danube Valley, and even on the Saale and the Main. Products of factories and flint mines were, as stated, traded widely throughout a single province, such as the British Isles, and some especially valued raw materials—the yellow flint of Grand-Pressigny (France), the obsidian of Melos and the Lipari Islands—became objects of “international trade” as much as shells. But the most prized object of such commerce was the amber of Jutland and Poland, whose electrical properties seemed evidence of potent mana.