The Joy of Flint by Clive Waddington
Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2004. 101 pages; 31 text figures/illustrations; 52 plates; ISBN 0 7017 0165 X (£12.99 plus p+p)
The book is set out in a simple, easy to follow pattern with well-illustrated
chapters of approximately eight pages long, which serve as a general
introduction to the subject. Topics covered include raw materials, stone tool
manufacture and stone tool chronology- the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Early
Neolithic and Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. A final section of the book
deals with the analysis and interpretations from lithics. There then follow two
brief appendices covering suggested attributes for recording stone tool
assemblages, object illustration and a glossary. The catalogue of assemblages
currently held in Newcastle Museum provides 29 pages and the book concludes
with a bibliography and index.
The cover of the book is immediately eye catching both for its title, which
captures the emotion most stone tool specialists feel for their material, and
for the striking colour photograph of John Lord at work. The author makes it
plain in the introduction that this book is not intended to present a
definitive or in-depth examination of the subject and unashamedly stresses
that, where possible, the thrust of the text offers a northern bias to stone
tool studies.
The initial chapter provides a well-structured description of raw materials and
illustrates that, despite its title, the book is not exclusively about flint.
This chapter not only serves the purpose but is essential for introducing the
new reader to the vast array of rocks, some relatively coarse grained, that
have been exploited for stone tool manufacture in the north of England. It
stresses the important role that surface and glacial deposits, beaches and
river gravel played as sources of raw material in areas where primary sources
were hard to come by. The chapter concludes by migrating to the south of
England with a short discussion of flint mining including consideration of the
symbolic and ritual significance of these sites.
There follows a concise description of the various techniques used in stone
tool manufacture. This section covers the reduction sequence, retouch, flake
and core morphology, flaking, pecking, grinding, polishing and drilling. Flint
technology is a complicated subject and there is a great deal of factual
information crammed into the sentences in this section for the beginner. Indeed
it could be argued that some of this section could be better placed in the
glossary, which would create room for an expanded and more relaxed description
of flint technology that would be of more benefit to the first time reader. The
main points are backed up as they are throughout the book, by annotated
drawings and good quality colour photographs.
The next four chapters trace the evolution of stone tool industries in Britain
from the Palaeolithic, through the Mesolithic, Early Neolithic to the Late
Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. A consideration of flint working in the Late
Bronze Age is added at the end of this last chapter. The Lower and Middle
Palaeolithic periods are virtually absent from the north of England and
references to relevant sites are inevitably drawn from the south of the
country. This is probably the weakest of the period chapters. It accepts that
hand axe technology may have co-existed with the flake/core technology of the
Clactonian but adheres very closely to the concept that the earliest stone tool
technology of the British Isles was the flake/core tradition of the Clactonian.
Table 1 at the front of the book also tends to corroborate this impression
despite the results of work at Boxgrove, West Sussex (Roberts and Parfitt,
1999). There are also a number of dates that do not conform to accepted Oxygen
Isotope Stages (OIS), principally those shown for the Cromerian and Hoxnian
Interglacials in table 1. In addition the introduction of the Levallois
technique to the British Isles is placed at c.100,000 BP despite the fact that
Bridgland (1994) has associated the introduction of this technique to the later
part of OIS Stage 8 at approximately 250,000 BP. These errors excepted the
chapter ends more strongly on the Upper Palaeolithic, where the north of
England is well represented at Creswell Crags. The following three chapters all
paint readable, general, chronological pictures of the Mesolithic, Early
Neolithic and Late Neolithic and Bronze Age period that have the ability to
appeal to specialists, students and uninformed members of the public. The
chapters also draw more heavily for their source material on the northern
counties and place the stone tools in their wider context of settlement,
burial, trade, climate and environment.
The final text takes the reader from the tools themselves to consider their
interpretation as indicators of human activity and behaviour. This introduces a
range of analytical techniques including attribute, functional and spatial
analysis, petrological sampling as a means of establishing production and
exchange and social, stylistic and symbolic function of stone tools. This is a
particularly important aspect of stone tool studies and one that must be
introduced to the ‘first time’ reader in order to expand their study from the
tool itself. The more interpretative and theoretical approach to stone tool
analysis is arguably one of the more difficult aspects of the subject to convey
in readable text in an introductory volume to a casual reader. Parts of this
chapter are eminently readable to those with any level of knowledge; however
there are other sections that adopt a more formal style of text and are less
enjoyable to read. The chapter also suffers from being the most poorly
illustrated chapter of the entire book.
The Gazetteer of the Lithic Collections of the Museum of Antiquities,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne provides a useful catalogue and a starting point for any
researcher studying stone tools in the north of England. It is well set out by
county and alphabetically by parish. Each entry consists of location, NGR
(where known), museum catalogue number, donor, published references and a brief
description of the objects. Many of the items refer to a single object,
including individual flint flakes. Flint axes have been listed but perhaps
unfortunately, not stone axes. The glossary is sufficient to cope with most of
the basic definitions that an aspiring student of stone tools may wish to
resolve and the bibliography provides 230 titles on a variety of topics to
offer additional reading matter should this be required, including publications
in Danish, French and Norwegian!
This book sets out to provide a basic, well-priced, introductory guide to
studies of stone tools and to offer a gazetteer to the stone tool collections
of the Museum of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Most of these aims are achieved
successfully, although there are parts of the text that are unlikely appeal to
a broad public readership. It is most likely to benefit students or those with
some prior knowledge of the subject, but may also attract casual readers who
will be attracted by its well-illustrated format. For those keen to acquire an
easy route to present knowledge of stone tool assemblages in the north of
England the gazetteer provides an easily accessible source.
Phil Harding
Wessex Archaeology
Reference
Bridgland, D.R., 1994, Quaternary of the Thames, Geological Conservation Review
Services, Jt. Nature Conservation Committee , London, Chapman and
Hall.
Roberts, M.B. & Parfitt, S.A., 1999, A Middle Pleistocene hominid site at
Eartham Quarry, Boxgrove, West Sussex, UK, London, Engl. Herit.
Archaeol. Rep. 17.
Review Submitted: August 2005
The views expressed in
this review are not necessarily those of the Society or the Reviews
Editor.
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