Eastern trench

2015-11-11

Flint axes were used as lithic cores at Alvastra pile dwelling?

The pile dwelling is a site that has left evidence of many interesting cultural activities. One such activity that has become very evident whilst cataloguing the flint material is the destruction and/or re-use of apparently fully functional tools, such as thick and thin-butted axes as cores for the production of smaller tools, flakes and debitage ...

2015-11-02

Impressive Impressions

I would like to draw attention to an interesting décor that I recently found on a sherd. It is something that I have never seen on Neolithic pottery before. The specific sherd is presented above. It is a flat rimmed sherd. The colour is light (yellow-grey) and the ware is well homogenized and well burned ...

2015-10-26

Projectile points in the Pile dwelling

There are two dominant types of projectile points that have been found in and around the pile dwelling at Alvastra. These are commonly referred to as tanged arrowheads and traverse arrowheads. Tanged arrowhead with fire damage from Alvastra pile dwelling. SHM 34984:x219/y425 F30 (photo: Greg Tanner, SHM) Tanged arrowheads are probably closest related to the Pitted Ware ...

2015-10-09

Et voilà! A vessel is made

In my recent post I described the differences within the ceramic material found at Alvastra pile dwelling where the so called pile dwelling pottery (PBK) is singled out from the rest of the material partly through choices made during production. In my work it has therefore become important to evaluate how the different materials were ...

2015-10-01

Lithic material in the pile dwelling

There are literally thousands of pieces of flint in the material collected in the 1976-1980 investigations. These range in size from whole cores or pieces of cores and raw material to the smallest micro flakes, and debitage less than 1mm across. So the big question is when is a piece of flint not just a ...

2015-09-17

The Enigmatic Pile Dwelling Pottery

Registering the pottery from Alvastra pile dwelling is an interesting, fascinating and enthralling task. However, the material is somewhat challenging to grasp. The material is diverse and comprised of three main groups of different character. So called funnel beaker pottery (FBP) and pitted ware pottery (PWP) are both present at the site; two material groups that ...