Publication details
Key raw materials for Neolithic shoe-last celts and axes in Central Europe: their sources and distribution
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | Since the beginning of the Neolithic the amphibole-rich metabasites started to be used for polished shoe-last adzes, shoe-last axes and flat axes in prevalent part of Central Europe. These raw materials were key tool stones for cultures with the Linear Pottery, Stroke-ornamented Pottery and the older stage of Lengyel culture (Moravian Painted Ware I). The metabasites were quarried in a few source areas in Central Europe with the most important in the Jizerské hory Mountains (northern Bohemia). It was established a large distribution net testifying for a relatively stable situation in almost whole Central Europe suitable for the exchange of raw material. From petrographic point of view the amphibole-rich metabasites represent rocks that underwent after a regional metamorphosis also the thermal metamorphosis at the contact with large Variscan or Cadomian granite plutons. This event improved substantially their properties because of a high content of newly formed fibrous amphiboles and the rocks resembled nephrite. The relatively uniform Early Neolithic raw material basis for polished tools was changed during the Central-European Eneolithic when the distribution net gradually disintegrated in a few smaller ones both connected with individual Eneolithic cultures and specific local stone sources. |