Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 12. 1971 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1972)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen. A Pannonia Konferenciák aktái, I. – Akten der Pannonia Konferenzen I. - Tringham, Ruth: The Function, Technology, and Typology of the Chipped Stone Industry at Bilany, Czechoslovakia. – Bylany (Csehország) pattintott kőeszközeinek formai, technológiai és funkcionális vizsgálata. XII, 1971. p. 143–148.

be a set of minimal morphological requirements or concomitants without which the implement would not work properly. For example, an implement used to scrape hard material such as wood or bone will work most efficiently, that is for longest without becoming blunt, if the scraping edge is perpendicular to the blade fractures, at the distal end of the blade. It will not work at all if the edge is too concave or too wide. An implement made on a blade, especially if it is used at the distal end, can withstand greater pressure than one made on a flake. A scraper used on soft material works best if the cutting edge is not too narrow but its minimal requirements are much less limiting. Cutting implements need as long an edge as possible, preferably one with a narrow angle. They are therefore made predominantly on blades, but the cutting edge is always the lateral, never the distal edge. Boring implements need a thick pointed end. If none was available on blades or flakes struck off the core, a point had to be manufactured by retouch. Projectile heads, such as arrowheads also need a point, but one which is strong and symmetrical so that it will penetrate deeply but without spoiling the path of flight. Unmodified blades which fulfil these requirements occur only very rarely. Without the knowledge of pressure flaking the surface in order to produce a thin symmetrical blade, or of the technique of making microlithic blades which could have been used as small barbs or points, it was virtually impossible to manufacture a projectile head of chipped stone. Neither the technique of producing microlithic blades nor pressure flaking was known in the early neolithic settlements of central or south-east Europe, apart from a few isolated cases, in S. Rumania. Nor is there any evidence of projectile heads, at least not in stone. It is perhaps a little premature to decide whether these techniques were unknown to the Linear Pottery population or whether they knew but rejected them as unnecessary. It should be remembered that in the early neolithic settlements, at least of central Europe, there was very little evidence of hunting. In the Linear Pottery settlements where there is evidence of hunting, for example the lower Rhine sites, the technique of pressure flaking and the manufacture of stone projectile heads was also common. Mr. R. Newell will tell us that these were characteristic also of the lower Rhine mesolithic settlements and that there is the important element of cultural continuation and contact of the two pojmlations. 3. This digression brings us on to a discussion of the third factor, the cultural factor, causing variation in the chipped stone industry and any other set of artefacts in an assemblage. Blades and flakes were chosen for a specific function with the minimal requirements to ensure efficiency in that function. In a few cases, as with borers and arrowheads, a certain amount of modification by retouch was necessary in order to make the implement function at all. In addition the shape of the blade was modified by retouching which may have made the implement more efficient, but it was not essential to make it function. Retouch of this kind includes that on the cutting edge making it straight, concave, convex, slanting etc., or in order to blunt the edge to facilitate handling or hafting. The supplementary sophistications such as these are caused by cultural factors such as the rejection or acceptance, partial or complete, of innovations in certain features. A gradual modification of the shape could be caused by internal evolution or slow diffusion. A sudden change may indicate a a change of population or contact with a different population. The innovation may have been accepted with or without dislocation into the framework of the culture. The reconstruction of these factors depends on the interpretation of archaeological cultures. The artefacts themselves and the changes in their attributes form the basis of the identification and interpretation of archaeological cultures and culture change. For some, the cultural factors are the exclusive determining factors in the shape of an implement, and elaborate morphological typologies have been built up depending in particular on the distribution of deliberate retouch as well as the general form and dimensions of the artefacts. It is clear, I hope from the above description of the factors determining variation in the shape of artefacts that the cultural factors cannot be correctly assessed unless the minimal morphological requirements imposed by the function and the limitations imposed by the raw materials and level of technical skill are also known. The cultural factors and recognition of their results are much more difficult to distinguish in relation to chipped stone implements than, for example, f»ottery where decoration provides a clear and detailed guide to the cultural factors involved. Thus it is not only difficult but also very dangerous to base conclusions of cultural significance on the evidence of chipped stone tools alone, not only because of the limited number of activities which they represent, but also because of the limited range of possible supplementary modifications to the shape of the implements. It is very obvious that in order to distinguish archaeological cultures and their evolution and patterns, the whole assemblage must be taken into account

0 \ As will be clear from the above account the three factors of raw material-technology, function and culture are closely interdépendant. To base a classification of the stone artefacts only on their morphology, as has been done for the early neolithic assemblages of Europe

(2) as well as the Mesolithic and (1) The first part of this paper is based on a discussion in the series „Seminars in Material Culture" entitled „Causes of Variation in Archaeological Material" held in the Dept. of Anthropology, University College London on 2nd February 1970. Speaker M. J. Rowlands, Chairman Dr. P. Ucko. (2) A. BÖHMERS-A. BRUIJN, Statische und graphische Methoden zur Untersuchung von Flintkomplexen IV. Das lithische Material aus bandkeramischen Siedlungen in Niederland. Palaeohistoria 6/7, 1958/ 59, 183 - 213. ; R. FEUSTEL, Zum Problem des Über144