Federmesser-type backed blade

The shoulder point was found in Wołczków, the Police district. The collection of 44 Palaeolithic objects connected with the Federmesser culture from Wołczków was discovered before 1910 by an amateur archaeologist H. Schumann from Löcknitz at a site called Streitkamp. After Schumann's death the entire collection was donated to the Gesellschaft für Pommersche Geschichte und Altertumskunde in Szczecin by K. von Brüning. The exact location of the hoard remains unknown because Schumann's original catalogue was lost, and a copy was never made. The shoulder point is a chip arrowhead, made on an elongated half-sericite chipped from a larger lump of Middle Turonian chalk flint, characterised by the presence of bryozoans' skeletons in the flint mass. The chip was deflected with a soft pestle (most likely from antler) from a single-floor core, i.e., with a single plane prepared to plate the half-product. In this case, the rebound was preceded by edge preparation, gentle flaking of the point of impact, known as faceting. The shank was then made on the chip by chipping off small scales, followed by a shoulder point. Single shoulder points are Palaeolithic arrowheads and javelins. In Central and Northern Europe, they are primarily associated with the Magdalenian culture and its descendants: the Hamburg and Federmesser cultures (mainly the former). The presence of a single point in the assemblage from Wołczków may mean that it should be dated to the early phase of development of the Federmesser culture. The technological analysis also confirms such an interpretation. The single point from Wołczków, like the whole Federmesser assemblage, is generally dated to ca. 11900-11000 BC.

Michał Adamczyk