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Apel, J. & Knutsson, K., 2006. Skilled Production and Social Reproduction. SAU Stone Studies 2. Uppsala.
Jacques Pelegrin
Long blade technology in the Old
World: an experimental approach
and some archaeological results
Abstract
With reference to an extensive body of production experiments, the author
tugal/France in the west to Bulgaria/Syria in the east. Two techniques for
tion and is thereby, among other things, able to suggest the movement of a
few specialised craftsmen over large areas.
Introduction
Long and regular blades, excavated in Europe and in the Near East, and
dating from the Late Neolithic or Chalcolithic (4 th and 3 rd millenniums BC)
have long been discussed. Over this vast and diverse area, we are now aware
ploited in an extensive blade production, many of them for several centuries,
but not necessarily by a large number of craftsmen.
Some of these workshops have been known for more than a century,
(Belgium), but are still little documented. Other workshops were discovered
– or rediscovered – more recently, and/or are presently under study (e.g. the
northern Bulgaria). Others remain to be discovered, being suspected only
Very few studies were conducted on these blade productions from the
Neolithic or Chalcolithic. A few years ago, nothing was known about their
detachment technique, and the relevant criteria were even not documented
tion process (or “chaîne opératoire”), i.e. the core geometry, the position of
crests, the platform preparation, the rhythm of the blade detachment, the
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