Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-v5vhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-24T15:52:30.789Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The production of specialised flintwork in the later Neolithic: a case study from the Yorkshire Wolds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Tess Durden
Tess Durden
Affiliation:
Thames Valley Archaeological Services, 3 London Road, Reading RG6 5BJ
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the evidence for specialist artefact production during the later Neolithic on the Yorkshire Wolds. It is proposed that such an industry was responsible for the production of some of the highly distinctive lithic artefacts present in that period, such as polished discoidal knives, ripple-flaked and polished oblique arrowheads, and polished flint axes. It is suggested that much of the value attached to these items derived from the highly organised but restricted nature of their production. Two sites on the Wolds were fieldwalked and the finds subjected to both technological and spatial analysis. Results indicate that an industry exercising a higher level of skill existed alongside more everyday knapping activities. This industry was divided into two phases, consisting of the roughing out of flint nodules at the stone source and the completion of the specialised artefacts in spatially restricted workshops within settlements.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 61 , 1995 , pp. 409 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bradley, R., Cleal, R., Gardiner, J., Green, M. & Bowden, M. 1984. The Neolithic sequence in Cranborne Chase. In Bradley, R. and Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies, 15–40. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 133.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. & Edmonds, M. 1993. Interpreting the Axe Trade. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, J.G.D., Higgs, E.S. & Longworth, I.H. 1960. Excavations at the Neolithic site at Hurst Fen, Mildenhall, Suffolk. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 26, 202–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costin, C. 1991. Craft specialisation: issues in defining, documenting and explaining the organisation of production. In Schiffer, M. (ed.), Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 3, 1–55.Google Scholar
Edmonds, M. 1987. Rocks and risk: problems with lithic procurement strategies. In Brown, A. G. & Edmonds, M.R. (eds), Lithic Analysis and Later British Prehistory, 15 5–79Oxford: British Archaeological Report 162.Google Scholar
Edmonds, M.R. 1989. The Gift of Stones: the Production and Exchange of Stone Axes in the British Neolithic. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Reading.Google Scholar
Ford, S. 1987. Chronological and functional aspects of flint assemblages. In Brown, A.G. & Edmonds, M.R. (eds), Lithic Analysis in Later British Prehistory, 67–85. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 162.Google Scholar
Gardiner, J.P. 1988. The Composition and Distribution of Neolithic Surface Flint Assemblages in Central Southern England. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Reading.Google Scholar
Gardiner, J.P. 1990. Flint procurement and neolithic axe production on the South Downs: a reassessment. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 9, 119–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Healy, F.M.A. 1980. The Neolithic in Norfolk. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of London.Google Scholar
Henson, D. 1982. A study of flint as a raw material in Prehistory, with an emphasis on Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Unpublished M.Phil thesis, University of Sheffield.Google Scholar
Kolmogorov, A.N. 1933. Sulle determinazione empirica di una legge di distribuzione. Giornale Instituto di Italia Attuari 4, 83–91.Google Scholar
Lord, J.W. 1993. The Nature and Subsequent Uses of Flint: The Basics of Lithic Technology. Privately published.Google Scholar
Manby, T.G. 1974. Grooved Ware Sites in Yorkshire and the North of England. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaels, G.H. 1989. Craft specialisation in the early postclassic of Colha. In McAnnay, P.A. & Isaac, B.L. (eds), Research in Economic Anthropology, Supplement 4: Prehistoric Maya Economies of Belize, 139–83. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Moore, J.W. 1964. Excavations at Beacon Hill, Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire. Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 41, 191–202.Google Scholar
Olausson, D. 1992. Report on an ongoing research project: craft specialisation and prehistoric society. Fornvännen 88, 1–8.Google Scholar
Pearson, K. 1900. On the criterion that a given system of deviations from the probable indicators of the correlated system of variables is such that it can be reasonably supported to have arisen from random sampling. Philosophical Magazine 50, 5th series, 157–75.Google Scholar
Pierpoint, S.J. 1978. Aspects of Social and Economic Prehistory of Yorkshire 3500–750 BC. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Sheffield.Google Scholar
Pierpoint, S.J. 1980. Social patterns in Yorkshire prehistory 3500–750 BC. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saville, A. 1981. The flint assemblage. In Mercer, R. J., Grimes Graves, Norfolk: Excavations 1971–2, Vol 2. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Sheppard, T. 1910. Neolithic workshops near Bridlington. The Naturalist, 262–4.Google Scholar
Sheppard, T. 1921. The Origin of the Materials used in the manufacture of Prehistoric Stone Weapons in East Yorkshire. Hull: Hull Museum Publications.Google Scholar
Torrence, R. 1986. The Production and Exchange of Stone Tools. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar