Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
As I've mentioned before, quartz is a tricky material to make tools of. Quartz-tool production waste is very common on prehistoric sites in most of Sweden where flint is rare.
I just thought I should share one of the least attractive entries in the inventory of the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm. This material was collected in 1971. I love it in all its absurdity.
31110. Botkyrka parish, Fittja farmstead 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, registered site 280Workshop find? Quartz quarry? C. 70 kg collected quartz, of which some may be worked.
Seventy kilograms!
Comments
Tell you something, back in the 80´s we found a ploughed Roman Iron Age - Vendel Period (some early Viking Age too, I think) cemetery in Halland (Sannagård, Falkenberg). In the soil there were loads of quartz pieces, up to the size of 5 cm or so, probably originally strewn over stone settings and small mounds.
Posted by: Lars L | May 4, 2007 6:33 AM
Yeah... In 2003-04, Migration Period chamber graves were excavated at Lilla Sylta in Fresta parish, Uppland. They were covered with hundreds of kgs of quartz that had been bashed into gravel. A fun job for the thralls.
Posted by: Martin R | May 4, 2007 6:53 AM
And fun for the "thralls" forced to register all of it, good god...
Posted by: Lars L | May 4, 2007 12:15 PM
Now, this is why we have masters students. It's good for their souls.
Bob
Posted by: Bob O'H | May 5, 2007 10:58 AM
Reminds me of Amnon Ben-Tor, the Israeli professor who headed my first dig on a tell in the Galilee. According to his students, Yigael Yadin had once ordered ben Tor to excavate the tell's water system, a humonguous shaft in the ground filled with sterile sediment. ben Tor spent years on the task, shifting endless amounts of dirt and finding only a handful of pottery. Since then, the students maintained, he had no sympathy for bored students on digs.
Posted by: Martin R | May 6, 2007 9:32 AM