Wood Tar in the Dnieper and Elbe Communities: VI - II Millenium BC

346 Pages·6.477 MB·English

by  Pietrzak S.

WOOD TAR IN THE DNIEPER
AND ELBE COMMUNITIES:
VI – II MILLENIUM BC
Sławomir Pietrzak
V O L U M E 17 • 2012
BALTIC-PONTIC STUDIES
61-809 Poznań (Poland)
Św. Marcin 78
Tel. [phone], Fax [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
EDITOR
Aleksander Kośko
EDITORIAL COMMITEE
Sophia S. Berezanskaya (Kiev), Aleksandra Cofta-Broniewska
(Poznań), Mikhail Charniauski (Minsk), Lucyna Domańska
(Łódź), Elena G. Kalechyts (Minsk), Viktor I. Klochko (Kiev),
Jan Machnik (Kraków), Vitaliy V. Otroshchenko (Kiev), Ma-
rzena Szmyt (Poznań), Petro Tolochko (Kiev)
SECRETARY
Marzena Szmyt
SECRETARY OF VOLUME
Danuta Żurkiewicz
ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY
INSTITUTE OF EASTERN STUDIES
INSTITUTE OF PREHISTORY
Poznań 2012
ISBN 83-86094-17-6
ISSN 1231-0344
WOOD TAR IN THE DNIEPER
AND ELBE COMMUNITIES:
VI – II MILLENIUM BC
Sławomir Pietrzak
Translated by Ryszard J. Reisner
V O L U M E 17 • 2012
© Copyright by BPS and Authors
All rights reserved
Cover Design: Eugeniusz Skorwider
Sławomir Pietrzak
Printed in Poland
Computer typeset by PSO Sp. z o.o. w Poznaniu
Printing: Zakłady Poligraficzne TMDRUK in Poznań
CONTENTS
Editor’s Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Editorial Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Foreword from the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1 . Study Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 . Material Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3 . Chorological and Chronological Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4 . History of Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5 . Research Method and Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
6 . Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
I . Evidence for Wood-Tar Production in Historic Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
I .1 . Terminology: Definitions of the Terms ‘Wood Tar’ /
‘Wood-Tar Production’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
I .2 . Wood Tar in Written Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
I .2 .1 . Production Process Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
I .2 .2 . Application Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
I .3 . Linguistic Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
II . Techno-Archaeological Fundamentals of Wood-Tar Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
II .1 . Raw Material Used in Wood-Tar Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
II .1 .1 . Wood Chemical Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
II .1 .2 . Chemical Structure of Bark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
II .2 . Tar Making Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
II .2 .1 . The Archaeological Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
II .2 .2 . The Technological and Chemical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
II .3 . Physical and Chemical Properties of Wood Pyrolysis Products . . 48
II .3 .1 . Physical and Chemical Properties of Birch Tar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
II .3 .2 . Physical and Chemical Properties of Pine Tar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
II .4 . Preparing Tar and Processing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
II .5 . Residues of Wood Tar – Archaeological Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
II .5 .1 . Lumped Tar Substances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
II .5 .1 .1 . Large Fragments Lumped Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
II .5 .1 .2 . Small Fragments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
II .5 .2 . Tar Substances on Pottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
II .5 .2 .1 . Post-production Residues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
II .5 .2 .2 . Binding and Sealing Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
II .5 .2 .3 . Colorants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
II .5 .3 . Tar Substances on Utilitarian Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
II .5 .4 . Carbon Deposits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
II .5 .5 . Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
II .5 .5 .1 . Boat and Ship Caulking and Preservation Material . . . . . . . . . . . 68
II .5 .5 .2 . Substance Used in Mummification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
II .5 .5 .3 . Wood Tar in Rites and Primitive Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
II .6 . Research Procedures – Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
III . Range and Methodology of Laboratory Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
III .1 . Melting Point Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
III .2 . Solubility Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
III .3 . Thin-Layer Chromatography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
III .4 . Microscopic Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
III .5 . Infrared Spectrophotometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
III .6 . Mass Spectrometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
III .7 . Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
III .8 . Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
IV . Interpretation of Physico-Chemical Examinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
IV .1 . Identification of Production Technology of Examined
Substances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
IV .1 .1 . Examination Results of Wood-Tar Substances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
IV .1 .1 .1 . Technological Group I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
IV .1 .1 .2 . Technological Group II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
IV .1 .1 .3 . Technological Group III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
IV .1 .1 .4 . Technological Group IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
IV .1 .2 . Examination Results of Bituminous Substances . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
IV .1 .2 .1 . Technological Group V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
IV .1 .3 . Examination Results of Composite Substances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
IV .1 .3 .1 . Technological Group VI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
IV .2 . Identification of Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
IV .2 .1 . Results of Studies on Post-production Residues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
IV .2 .2 . Results of Studies on Binders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
IV .2 .3 . Results on Vessel Caulking Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
IV .2 .4 . Results of Studies on Colorants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
IV .3 . Variety of Wood-Tar Production Technology and Application
in Particular Cycles of Cultural Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
V . Catalogue of Physico-Chemical Research Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
V .1 . Temperature of Melting Point Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
V .2 . Analysis of solubility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
V .3 . Thin layer chromatography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
V .4 . Microscopic Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
V .5 . Infered spectrophotometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
V .6 . Mass Spectometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
V .7 . Nuclear magnetic Spectometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
V .8 . Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectometry . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Catalogue of Finds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Editor’s Foreword
The study ‘Wood Tars in the Dnieper and Elbe Communities: 6th – 2nd Mille-
nium BC’ is the first European monograph of its kind in the professional literature
devoted to the general question of the craft technology and application of wood
tars among proto-agrarian communities across the long line of the Neolithic,
Eneolithic and beginning of the Bronze Age across the vast expanse of border-
lands joining Eastern and Western Europe .
The research for the purpose of this monograph was undertaken at the Univer-
sity of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań in partnership with the Institute of Prehistory
and the Physico-Chemical Materials and Nanotechnology Section at the Faculty of
Chemistry . The study was completed with the aid of chemical analyses of a com-
prehensive collection of wood tar samples documented in the course of excava-
tions conducted in collaboration with a number of research-related institutions .
The original work in Polish, ‘Zastosowanie i technologie wytwarzania dziegciu
przez społeczeństwa międzyrzecza Dniepru i Łaby od VI do II tys BC’ [Wood
Tar Crafts and Their Application Among Dnieper and Elbe Interfluvial Commu-
nities: 6th – 2nd millennium BC] was published in 2010 [‘Archaeologia Bimaris
Monografie’, vol . 4] and received broad-ranging ‘interdisciplinary recognition’
from many scholarly circles in Central-Eastern Europe for the issues raised in
respect to wood tars and their applications among prehistoric peoples . This con-
sequently saw the decision to aim for a potentially broader readership through an
abridged English version in the ‘Baltic-Pontic Studies’ series .
The study was supervised in respect to on-going work and research methods
by Professor Jerzy J . Langer at the University of Adam Mickiewicz, who also
reviewed the monograph for publication .
Editorial comment
1 . All dates in the B-PS are calibrated [BC; see: Radiocarbon vol . 28, 1986,
and the next volumes] . Deviations from this rule will be point out in notes
[bc] .
2 . The names of the archaelogical cultures and sites are standarized to the
English literature on the subject (e .g . M . Gimbutas, J .P . Mallory) . In the
case of a new term, the author’s original name has been retained .
3 . The spelling of names of localities having the rank of administrative cen-
tres follows official, state, English language cartographic publications (e .g .
Ukraine, scale 1 : 2 000 000, Kiev: Mapa LTD, edition of 1996; Rèspublika
BELARUS’, REVIEW-TOPOGRAPHIC MAP, scale 1:1 000 000, Minsk:
BYELORUSSIAN CARTOGRAPHIC AN GEODETIC ENTERPISE, edition
1993) .