Bone stitching awl

The bone stitching awl was discovered in 1957 during excavations carried out at the archaeological site in Ustowo, which was repeatedly settled over several millennia. In the Younger Stone Age, Bronze Age and Early Middle Ages, there were extensive settlements here, and at an unspecified time also a cemetery. Archaeological research at the Ustowo site has been carried out several times. The first exploration was carried out by Reinhold Richter between 1926 and 1941. Subsequent ones in 1957 and 1960 were led by Kazimierz Siuchniński, PhD, then an employee of the Szczecin Museum, who discovered the remains of a settlement of the youngest phase of the funnel-shaped cup culture, which lasted until the end of the Stone Age. The awls, made of organic raw materials, belong to tools with a long history, dating back tens of thousands of years. They were used to perforate various kinds of raw materials from the Old Stone Age to the early Middle Ages. Later they were marginalised by tools made of metal. In the Neolithic, bone and horn awls were made, with animal bones being much preferred. The reasons for this preference were probably determined by the amount of work required to make these utensils. Bones of farmed animals, as well as wild ones, were available in much greater quantity, and with the use of appropriate types, such as limb bones, the preparation of an awl was limited practically to the formation of the spike. The slender awl from the Ustowo settlement belongs to such forms, economical in terms of the amount of work involved. Its spike was made on the fibula of a boar or pig by one-sided bevelling and grinding. The back of the spike is the natural head of the bone. It was probably used to make holes in soft materials such as leather or fabric. However, it cannot be ruled out that some similar tools were used for other work, such as making an ornament on clay vessels.

Krzysztof Kowalski