S5002313

180 MSeckó 2ohrovico in Bohomia

The tools, i.o. iron chisels and knivos, were not fbund in Mdeckó 2ehrovice in a fmd context tlmt would identify thom clearly as serving sololy for sapropelite working. The iron knives from tho sito might have sorved dif&rent purposes as woli, Whetstones madę from local sandstone are a rola-tively frequent find. Whetstones of the current prismatic or cylindrical shape might also have bcen used for working of ohjects of other nut t er i u ls than sapropelite, however, the use of somo of the specimens for the surface treatment of sapropelite artefacts is obvious. They are whetstones of finer sandstone with deep grooves, fre-quently on several sides (these however were not produced by the investigations of the site), or whetstones with very narrow grooves which, ac-cording to experiments by F. Sedlńtek, could have been used for finishing the ribs on some of the bracelets. (The whetstone from feature 20/84, Fig 79:1, was fbund in the fili of a hut belonging to the La te Horizon, but could have been in use before.) Hut 3/86 was characterized by a high number of whetstones in its fili.

Table 24 shows the relatively smali number of artefacts compared to the total ąuantity of raw sapropelite brought to the site: in the case of the collection concerned, only 10.5% of raw materiał (i.e. c. 8% of the total sapropelite weight) was processed into artefacts (category 2 to 10). This number must be increased by the number of finish-ed products (category 10) that were taken away from the site for trading purposes. The amount of usable raw materiał depended on its ąuality and the skill of tho craftsman. In generał, both were moro or less constant on the site: tho porcentage of unused raw materiał (in number of itums), either unsuitablo or inanufacturing waste, was 86.20 to 94.50% rogardloss of the find contoxt or tho duting and feature function (Table 25).

The artefact collcctions according to catogories also shows a number of common characteristics regardless of sottloment contoxt (Table 26).

Ali catogories of artefacts, i.e products of nil phases of the manufacturing process were preeent only in feature 3/86, which is taken to be a work-shop. Category 5 (central dises = cores) and 7 (roughouis) are the most common in all collections, followed by category 3 (primary dises) and 9 (al-most finished rings), i.e. products of all the basie phases of the manufacture of large rings belong to the best represented. The poorly represented category 10, i.e. finished products, reflects the relatively Iow fragility of rings in the finał phase of their production, and their transport away from the site for trading. The percentage of category 4 artefacts (primary disc, cutting-out of the centre not achieved), Iow but for one exception, is probab-ly due to the Iow fragility of the worked piec es during this manufacturing phase, while the same situation in the case of category 6 and 8 (working of central dises into smali rings) can be explained by the Iow volume of production of smali rings ca used by limited demand. A smali number of category 2 artefacts (primary disc partly cut-out from the raw materiał) may be ascribed to the suc-cessful finishing of this initial phase of manufac-

Category of object	Number of items	In %	Approx. weight (kg)
1(la+lb)	> 19000	89.95	241.920
2	20	0.1	0.830
3	206	0.98	3.700
4	66	0.31	1.450
5	884	4.19	11.260
6	24	0.11	0.320
7	577	2.73	2.420
8	67	0.32	0.630
9	208	0.98	0.690
10	70	0.33	0.190
Tb tal	>21122	100.00	263.410

Tablc 24. Sapropelite collection according to find categories.

(/Uf

fot

*?

Industrial settlement, LT B2-C1

181

Contozt		Raw sapropelits (catogories la+lb) in %	Artefacts (catogories 2-10) in %
induatrial f. 1/79		86.74	13.26
hut 2AB/79 i		89.10	10.90
hut 9/81		88.00	12.00
industrial hut 3/86		8620	13.80
aettlement layer 11D		92.07	7.93
settlement layer 11H	1 “-^50		5.50
pit 1/83 (LT C2-D)	^- 9X30		8.70
hut 4/83 (LT C2-D)		91.00	r - 9.00

Table 26. Relation of the sapropelite raw materiał and artefacts in eeUcted eon ter ts (containing 250 sapropelite i tema min.), in %.

turę, with out rejects, while admittedly, same of the products of this category may be hidden among the raw materiał with traces of working, i.e. category lb.

Finał products

The finał products (category 10, or the almost finished products of category 9) are represented by a few artefact types only. These are in all cases rings which can be dassified according to their diameter into large (D > 40 mm) and smali (D < 40mm). In the following dassification (Tab. 27), numbers 01-09 refer to large rings, 11-19 to smali rings, while the number in the secood posi-tion denotes the shape of the outer side of the ring.

lype 01, i.e. large plain rings, dominates absolute-ly, while the other types occurred less frequently in Mieckć 2ehrovice: type 02 2x, 03 lx, 04 2x, 11 8z, 14 lz.

The smali number of large ribbed rings (type 04) is surprising, although these rings in generał are hot numerous (e-g. at cemeteries). Their Iow representotion in Mteckć 2ehrovice might be ex-plained by 1) chronological causes, i.e. end of local sapropelite production before the LT Clb phase, when ribbed bracelets were manufactured, although this is not supported by other finds from the site (glass bracelets andpottery), 2) production cf ribbed rings in other than local workshop (though a workshop with such a specialization is

Category of artefact	Settlement contozt
	1/79	2AB/79	9/81	3/86	UD	UH	1/83 4/83 __
2		2.22		0.94
3 '	7.25	15.56	11.90	6.88	14.63	9.15 _	"	7.40
4	0.72	232	9.53	2.50		3.52	-	3.71
5 ;	67.40	— ^142.22	————— 42.86 i- --	■ 43.30	26.83 - ■ ■	23.94	36.36	29.63
6	- ,			0.94	2.44	2.11	-	3.71
7	19.56	31.11	11.90	23.43	36.59	39.44	45.45	29.63
8	0.72	-	4.77	2.34	4.88	3.52	- -	11.11
9	4.35	4.45	1120	15.16	12.19 ______-■	13.39	13.64	14.81
10	*9	0.24	7.14	4.53	2.44	4.93	4.55	-

Tubie 26. Repreeentation i]    utafwt categories ta sełected MUkmut cootezts. in % (100% = total number of

sapropelite items of catogories I to 10 ia each eontezt'. 1/79 to Sg feature* of the Karły Horizon (3/86 = sapropelite workshop); UD, UH: setUement ląytn in tren che* UD ud UH; 1/83 and 4/83: foatures of the Late Horizon