Modes of chipped stone tool production: the early farming societies in the North-Western Pontic region

The chipped stone assemblages of early farmers in the south of the Eastern Europe take several forms. 1) They can have a developed laminar component, with production wastes underrepresented, with a high percentage of retouched items (mostly blades with lateral retouch and endscrapers on blades), an exploitation of a high-quality long-distance imported raw material. These assemblages usually are numerically small. 2) Others demonstrate a “simplified” technical set (wide use of hard-hammer), many wastes of production, relatively low percentage of formal tools, most retouched tools on flakes (mostly retouched flakes and endscrapers on flakes), an exploitation of medium quality local chert. These assemblages are relatively larger in numbers. The latter complexes are often explained via the interaction with a local hunter-gatherer population. An alternative explanation can be sought via the notion of social organisation of flintworking. The early farmers were able to develop a complex system of flintworking based on intra- and inter- communal specialization and constant exchange of blanks and tools. The complexes of the first type result from an inclusion of a settlement into its exchange network. The complexes of the second type represent domestic production of households, satisfying its needs on its own, being excluded from its exchange network. So, early farmers’ flintknapping existed in two modes: “domestic” and “exchange”. “Exchange” mode is a common way of chipped stone tools production in early farming societies. “Domestic” mode is common in “borderline situation” under conditions of on-going Neolithisation of new terrain. Every early farming lithic assemblage can be treated as composed of products of these two modes to varying degree.