Ahrensburg tanged point

The Ahrensburg tanged point from Szczecin-Bezrzecz was found in 1932 by the Szczecin amateur archaeologist R. Richter. It is a specimen made of a short blade, deflected from a larger lump by a soft pestle made of bone, antler or sandstone. That was probably the so-called correction blade, a waste associated with maintaining the correct shape of the core. It is not a typical procedure, as tanged points were usually produced from long serial blades. Moreover, several errors can be seen on it, such as retouching on the underside instead of the top side, ineffective correction of the core edge preceding the blade rebound, and hitting the same point at least twice. The tanged point appears to have been made by an untrained maker with little skill. Some of the marks preserved on the foliation indicate that it was used as an arrowhead. These include the so-called impact mark created by a violent collision with a hard surface. Smaller tanged points were used as arrowheads, while larger ones for spears and javelins. The stone from Szczecin-Bezrzecze should be associated with the flint manufacture of the Ahrensburg culture (ca. 10800-9000 BC), which belongs to the circle of cultures with stone. The site where it was found is referred to as a palimpsest - a mixed site where remains of camps from different Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods as well as Neolithic settlements were discovered, which is a typical phenomenon in Pomerania. For thousands of years, representatives of different groups, distant in time, have chosen the same places due to their convenient location and availability of basic raw materials.

Michał Adamczyk