Table Of ContentOLDEHOLTWOLDE
Oldeholtwolde
A Hamburgian family encampment around a hearth
LYKKE JOHANSEN
DICK STAPERT
with a preface by
Professor H.T. Waterbolk
A.A. BALKEMA PUBLISHERS LISSE/ ABINGDON/ EXTON(PA) / TOKYO
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Copyright © 2004 Swets & Zeitlinger B.V., Lisse, The Netherlands
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operation or use of this publication and/or the information contained herein.
Published by A.A. Balkema Publishers, a member of Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers
www.balkema.nl and www.szp.swets.nl
ISBN 0-203-97124-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 90 5809 549 5(Print Edition)
FOR HEDDA
Contents
Preface ix
1. The ANALITHIC project 1
2. The Hamburgian site at Oldeholtwolde 3
2.1. Introduction 3
2.2. Geography and stratigraphy 4
2.3. Radiocarbon dates 6
2.4. The hearth and other features 8
2.5. Materials 12
2.6. The use-wear analysis 22
2.7. Ring and sector analysis 24
3. The flint material from Oldeholtwolde 27
3.1. Introduction 27
3.2. The tools 28
3.3. Burin spalls 86
3.4. ‘Barbs’ 88
3.5. Non-tools 93
3.6. Burnt flint artefacts 105
4. Refitting analysis of the flint material from Oldeholtwolde 111
4.1. Introduction and overview 111
4.2. Refits of broken artefacts 114
4.3. Refitted sequences involving tools 116
4.4. Refitted sequences without tools 157
5. Towards dynamic reconstructions 171
5.1. Flint technology and the chaîne opératoire 171
5.2. Dense flint scatters: knapping locations or dumps? 172
5.3. The three flint knappers 177
5.4. Tools: import versus on-the-site production 180
5.5. Moving around the hearth 182
5.6. Some distinctive raw materials 187
5.7. Types of refit 197
5.8. Refit lines: different length classes 207
5.9. ‘Refitting clusters’ 210
5.10. Summary 217
Acknowledgements 219
References 221
Index 225
Preface
About 13,000 years ago, a family of reindeer hunters set up camp in the open air at the foot of a sandy ridge with
sparse plant cover on the bank of a brook valley draining a low plateau, somewhere in the immense tundra plain
between the mountains of Scandinavia and the German–Belgian uplands. They stayed for a few weeks only. The
family consisted of at least a man, a woman, an elder boy and a younger boy. They made a fireplace of flat sand-
stones on which they roasted fish and meat, they worked hides and they made tools of flint, bone, antler and
perhaps wood. The members of the family had fixed places around the fire but moved over when the wind changed.
Flints and other stones had to be collected at a morainic outcrop about two kilometres away, willow firewood was
to be found in the nearby valley bottom. The stream was rich in fish and will have attracted plenty of wildlife.
They had brought along a collection of ready-made flint tools to be used at the spot, as well as a few prepared
cores and many unretouched blades. In the production of new tools three people were involved. The man was
highly experienced, the elder boy did quite well, but the younger boy was only a beginner. The flint toolkit con-
sisted of points, scrapers, burins, combination tools, truncated blades, Zinken, borers and notched blades. Two
flint tools were used for making fire by striking a pyrite nodule. When the family left the site they took with them
quite a few flint tools, blades and prepared cores, to be used at the next camp. The discarded remains of bone and
antler soon decayed, but at least 10,000 pieces of flint, 46 kilos of mostly broken stones from the fireplace, many
small pieces of charcoal, and one rubbed piece of red ochre remained on the site. Shortly after the people left,
these remains were gently covered by a 30 to 50cm layer of wind-blown sand which protected them against ero-
sion and other natural destructive forces. More than half a millennium later, another layer of driftsand was
deposited over the site and much later still a raised bog filled the valley and overgrew much of its slopes.
The temporary presence of this small group of people would have remained totally unnoticed, had not an agri-
cultural reallotment scheme in 1980 brought machinery to the site for a levelling operation and a keen archaeo-
logical assistant to find the first flints and to stop the digger. This happened near the village of Oldeholtwolde in
the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. The adjacent brook valley is that of the Tjonger, well known for the
occurrence of the classical sites of the Tjongerian, which is now regarded as part of the Federmesserculture. The
present site, however, belongs to the Havelte phase of the preceding Hamburgian and dates to the Dryas 2 period,
just before the onset of the Allerød Interstadial. At the moment of discovery it was largely untouched. There are
more Havelte-phase sites in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, but most of them have been discovered in
recent sand-dune areas (like the type site at Havelte) or cultivated fields. Oldeholtwolde is without doubt the
most important Hamburgian site of the Netherlands. Apart from a small disturbance at the moment of discovery,
everything was lying undisturbed in situ, the only post-depositional damage having been the splitting of stones
by frost in the Dryas 3 stadial.
The above detailed picture of life at the site—to which many more details could be added—is the combined
result of a study of the stratigraphy and geology; of radiocarbon dating of the charcoal; of a meticulous excav-
ation that involved sifting all soil and noting coordinates of every minute object; of a detailed description of all
tools and non-tools; of a study of the use-wear of the tools and blades (by Dr. Emily Moss); of the application of
the ring-and-sector method to the spatial analysis of the finds, developed by the second author; and of a highly
successful refitting analysis of the flint material by the first author. The latter is herself an experienced flint
knapper and is able to recognize individual knapping skills.
In this book the authors summarize earlier work on the site and present in great detail their analysis of the
spatial patterns revealed by the ring-and-sector method and by the refitting analysis. The book is well illustrated
with clear diagrams and beautiful drawings of the artefacts and refit groups (by the first author). It constitutes a
major advance in the study of the Upper Palaeolithic and will set a standard for the excavation, presentation and
analysis of sites of this period for many years to come.
Prof. H.T. Waterbolk,
Emeritus professor of archaeology, and
former director of the
Biological–Archaeological Institute of Groningen University
