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FLINT MINING OF CENTRAL EUROPE 41

rounded; the other one is transversely “cut”, for use as a hammer (Fig. 68c). These tools, unlike the pebble hammers, are usually prepared and finished with great care, in the first phase through chipping off flakes, and then by grinding (Krukowski 1939, 35). Hammers and pick-hammers adaptcd from stone axes also occur. They have a hole drilled through, to rtt a handle (Ruttkay 1970). At Krzemionki, pick-hammers were used to work in poorly stratified limestones and with rare joint cracks. This rock is easy to crush and groovc (Krukowski 1939, 39-41). Flint picks wcre used morę seldom to work the Calcerous rocks.

Deposit exploitation in damp and soft chalk, where the waste rock could be removed by scraping and jer-king, creatcd dilTcrent reąuirements. Picks with a sharp edge, madę of flint, wcre most suitablc for such work. Pebble hammers, cigar-shapcd pick-hammers as wcii as flint picks, often had a wooden handle. This is illustrated by ethnographic analogies (Krukowski 1939, 35; Schmid 1973 b, 27). On the other hand, experiments by T. Żurowski in underground shafts at Krzemionki show that pick-hammers and flint picks could have been efliciently used also without any handle (1962, 47).

Antler belonged to the materials most commonly used to producc mining tools. Most of necessary raw materiał was obtaincd by collecting shed antlers. Antlers were divided into parts depending on the sizc and the number of branches. Picks, axes, hoes, hammers, levers, rabblers, wedges and point-picks were hafted and madę in a simple way by adapting separate antler fragments. The most commonly used picks came from the piece of antler rod with the rosę (Fig. 63). The brow tinc next to the rosę was left as acting part and the ones above were removed (Schmid 1973 b, 28). Other antler fragment, with or without preparation, then were used as separate tools. Antler tools were used in many flint mines. Antlers of elk, roe-deer, and horns from aurochs were much morę rarcly used than red deer antler (Krukowski 1939, 33, 37; T. Żurowski 1960, 266; 1962, 48; Fulóp 1973, 23; 1975, 73; Schmid 1975, 79).

The shovel-spade madę from the shoulder blade of aurochs, deer, ox or swine by trimniing the protruding spine belong to the most interesting of mining bonę tools (Stone 1934, 227; Curwen 1954, 100). The efficiency of such a spadc was not much better than bare hands. It was probably important in protecting the miners’ hands against injury. It was most suitable for swecping up loosc materiał. We can assume that similar wooden tools wcre morę eftective than trimmed animal bones (Lane Fox 1876, 383; Coles 1973, 73 f.). Nor can we exclude the utilization of hand bonę picks, madę from the long bones of oxen, or bones of other big mammals (Armstrong 1923, 121 f.).

We know of pebble hammers from the minę

Fig. 63. Plan showing the division of antler for difterent kinds of tools for mining work. Tf the antler ends bclow the rosę (arrows)

this is a shed antler

After E.Schmid

at Lowenberg in the Swiss Jura sited 25 km. to the south-west of Basel (Schmid 1975, 78 f.). They were usually 20 cm long. They were used without any hafts beside antler picks, hammers or rabblers. This is similar to the minę at Veaux-Malaucene in the lower course of the Rhone elose to Avignon, where pebbles were brought from bigger distances perhaps up to 10-20 km from the site, and then used there. Various kinds of mining hammers (somc of them stone axes used for that purpose), flint axes and antler tools were used at Vienna-Mauer (Ruttkay 1970). Pebble mining hammers were used on a mass scalę in some mines outside Central Europę. Many hundreds of hammers with and without grooves comc from the minę at Vcaux-Malaucćnc. They are madę of elongated ąuartz pebbles 15-20 cm long. The most carefully madę hammers have a groovc in the middle a | of the way along. It was used to fit the handle. In some cases it is carefully hammered, in others it is like a strips (Schmid 1974, 15 f.). The weight of hammers from Malaucene often exceeds 10 kg (Phillips 1975, 130). No traces of deer antler or bones were found during the investigations at the minę. Perhaps they have not survived. E. Schmid suggested that the rcmoval of mined limestone was done with wooden tools.

In underground mining, in the soft chalk rocks of Limburg, Brabant and Hainaut, flint picks in wooden hafts were the basie tool. About 15,000 of them were found during cxcavations at Rijckholt—St.Geertruid (P. J. Felder, Rademakers 1973; Bosch 1975, 9). They were madę either of natural flint pieces, or of reused blade cores and unsuccessful semiproducts of axes (Fig. 64). Flint picks were also basie tools for working in the

6 — Przegląd Archeologiczny, t. 28