Heligoland flint
Helgoland flint comes primarily from the island of Helgoland and comes from limestones of the Upper Cretaceous , which are found under the sea in the area around the island. The specially colored flint can be found in abundance on the neighboring island of Dune . The east beach of the dune (Aade) is a stone beach, more than 80% of which consists of flint stones. The picture is characterized by a wide range of shapes, including macro fossils , preserved as flint cores. The rarer red flint can also be found on the dune. This comes from the white "writing chalk" and in this geological context, according to the current state of knowledge, occurs worldwide only on Heligoland and. Macrofossils made of red flint, such as sponges, sea urchins, etc. are particularly popular.
colour
The classic (ideal) red flint is actually three-colored, white barked up to 10 mm thick, then a black layer followed by a red core. The red of the color palette ranges from burgundy to flesh and violet red to pink. In general, the shade is uniform. In some cases, the flint under the bark of the flint bulb is brown to orange-brown. Such colored circles, lines or points under the thin, milk-white rind are significant for many pieces. In some pieces you can usually find coarse-grained inclusions that are completely white or brown to orange-brown. Color and structure differences between the inside and the outside can also be found in other varieties . The bulk of Heligoland flintstones has shades of gray, brown and black as well as an infinite number of mixed colors, blue is also very rare. Green-barked flint stones can also be found as well as brown wall stones, but both are very rare and both are not primarily from Heligoland, but ice age debris.
Grain
There are flints with pronounced grain in the form of a layer structure (similar to the Polish variety). The red flints are also often multicolored. Most of the flint stones were originally white bark, but this layering (opal) is a little softer (H = 6) and works off very quickly in the hard surf of the North Sea.
Other occurrences
There are no red flints in Friesland and Northern Germany , only brown ones, a few of which have a reddish sheen in the outer layer. They are in no way comparable to the red Heligoland flint. It is always a secondary coloring from storage in soils with a high concentration of iron oxide. Ultimately, it should be noted that the flints of northern Germany all came here as ice age debris. Only on Rügen , in Lägerdorf (Itzehoe) and in Hemmoor , flints can still be found. Red flints are not one of them.
geology
The appearance of red Heligoland flint is linked to the surroundings of the once larger island. Sea urchin stone cores (echinids) from the brown-red flint enabled biostratigraphic classification from the Middle Turonian to the Upper Turonian. In the Turonium there was a dead water zone for a short time in today's Heligoland area. The dead water zone emerged as a bituminous black slate layer in the otherwise white writing chalk. The black slate contains a lot of sulfur iron (pyrite + marcasite). These iron compounds are easily soluble and have colored the silica, from which the flint was made, red. The flint formation itself is described in great detail in Wroost (1936). From all other periods of the Upper Cretaceous, which also occur off Helgoland, only black and gray flint is known.
The potential flint layers in the Upper Cretaceous layers of Heligoland are about 250 m thick. The near-surface storage of the layers can be explained by the rise of a salt deposit from the Zechstein ( Tertiary ). At that time, the salt bulged the layers of red sandstone , chalk and shell limestone above . Buntsandstein (Mittlerer Buntsandstein) forms the main island, while the dune and the area northeast of it consist of layers of chalk and shell limestone. The name "Witte Klippe" indicates that there were chalk cliffs in historical times.
It is of archaeological interest whether Heligoland material was transported in the glacial . An occurrence of Heligoland red sandstone in the northern Netherlands would be an indication of this. However, red sandstone is not found here, which ultimately rules out the occurrence of Heligoland flint in the north of the Netherlands. Evidence for this can also be found in archeology . In the paleolithic and Mesolithic context, tools made of Heligoland flint are so far unknown, although the amount of material investigated was considerable. If the red flint were from here, then not only the people of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age would have used the material.
Most red flint items are larger objects, such as axes , daggers, and sickles . If the material could be found on land, it would have been processed locally and there would mostly be smaller tools. Glacial flint is also often of poor quality and is hardly suitable for making larger objects.
archeology
Helgoland was not a particularly attractive habitat for those who cultivated arable crops; therefore the island was hardly permanently inhabited. From the Neolithic, however, finds are known from both the older and younger phase of the funnel beaker culture and from the time of the individual grave culture. Looking at a small rock ax from the single grave culture, C. Ahrens said: “It is remarkable that such axes are relatively rare in Schleswig-Holstein, but seem to play a dominant role in the Lower Saxony-Dutch area. It is therefore to be expected that the individual grave culture of Heligoland is oriented more towards the south, towards Lower Saxony, than towards Schleswig-Holstein. "
A Bronze Age presence of people on Heligoland is not only proven by finds, but also by several large burial mounds. Although the hills have disappeared, three have been proven to be Bronze Age with certainty. The same time can be assumed for the others. On the basis of some finds from the older Bronze Age and the burial mounds, C. Ahrens assumed that Heligoland played an important role in the older Bronze Age.
Dating
Some of the archaeological finds from Heligoland flint can be dated due to technical and typological characteristics. There is sufficient evidence of the period in which Heligoland flint was used. It was exported from the Middle Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, perhaps even into the Early Iron Age. The focus is during the Middle Neolithic period of the funnel cup culture (TBK - 3500–2800 BC). This means that from around 3600 BC it was There was a simple ocean navigation in the North Sea.
Extraction
Reconstructing the extraction is difficult, as most of Heligoland has sunk into the sea. The island is said to have been quite mountainous, with a length of about eight and a width of five kilometers (today only 1.7 km²). The eastern part was a limestone plateau. In 1640 this plateau was still 10 hectares in size. F. Schmid believes that Heligoland was founded before 2500 BC. Was connected to the mainland. It was not until 500 years later that the connection was broken by the rise in the sea. Islands remain from the original connection to the mainland. These islands are likely to have been high places on the Südstrander Ridge, the remains of which can be seen in the “Steingrund”, in the “Loreley Bank” and at “Oldensworth” near Eiderstedt .
transport
Opinions on the point in time when Heligoland became an island, however, differ. C. Ahrens assumes that the connection broke 6000 years ago. He believes that the Flemish Transgression slowed down at this point. A reduction in speed since the late Atlantic - even interpreted by some authors as a minor regression - makes it possible that a chain of islands resisted the attack of the sea until the turn of the century. However, there was no land connection with the mainland during the Younger Stone Age. Perhaps the abrasion terrace around Heligoland found by O. Pratje at about 10 m below sea level can be related to this assumption.
The question of when Heligoland became an island is important for the reconstruction of the transport. Initially, the material may have been transported over the headland in the direction of Eiderstedt, but later transport by sea was inevitable. According to C. Ahrens, transport to Eiderstedt was only possible along a chain of islands in the Neolithic. If a transport took place by sea, it is possible in all directions.
distribution
Most of the finds come from the Emsland / Drenthe area and the North Frisian Islands, but Denmark and Sweden were also reached. The red flint reached the Meuse and the middle Weser via the rivers.
The distribution of the finds from Heligoland's red flint is still entirely determined by the intensity of the only record made. The result is an apparent density in the Drenthe. First of all, it is strange that cross-axes , regardless of the type of flint, cannot be found in the Drenthe. The distribution within the Drenthe is largely limited to the east ( Hondsrug ) and north. One explanation for this is that settlement was concentrated in the east and north of the province during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.
Germany
The German finds are easy to date. Some date from the late Bronze Age or the earlier Iron Age. E. Lomborg gives a date for daggers of type I in the late bell beaker culture , for type II a date in the subsequent period. In the case of daggers, the early types are particularly common. One find falls into the late Neolithic or the early Bronze Age. Several finds probably belong to the time of the single grave culture and one to the TBK. One find can be dated to the end of the Copper Age. Some finds are to be classified due to the connection with late Neolithic material from the same place. Two finds were found along with material from the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages.
Netherlands
Some finds can be roughly assigned to the TBK and the individual grave culture. There is a better dating for the ax plank from Een. On the basis of the hatchet found in the depot, O. H. Harsema gives a date in the TBK; either in the last early Neolithic stage (C) or in the oldest Middle Neolithic stage (I), i.e. around 3500 BC. The fact that a hatchet was found in a megalithic complex of the TBK makes it seem likely that the find belongs to the TBK. One find is typical of the individual grave culture, further finds can belong to the bell-cup culture.
Since 1940 the Provincial Museum of Drenthe ( Netherlands ) has been in possession of a deposit from Een, municipality of Norg (1940 / X 1a-t). It consists of four flint bulbs, a roughly worked ax plank and two large axes. The Beilplanke led to the discovery that Heligoland played a role in the export of flint to the surrounding coastal regions, although nothing on Heligoland is reminiscent of flint extraction. In 1983 F. Schmid (Lower Saxony State Office for Soil Research) gave a lecture in Brighton (England), showing a type of red flint that is only found on Heligoland. It quickly became clear that this was the type of variety that Een's ax plank is made of. In the systematic inventory of the red flint in the Netherlands, 31 pieces were registered from 24 sites. 26 of them come from the province of Drenthe. Due to the location, it is clear that more finds are to be expected in Germany and Denmark . Since a systematic record had not been carried out until 1988, only 14 items were registered.
literature
- Jaap E. Beuker: The use of Helgoland flint in the Stone and Bronze Age. In: The customer (new episode). 39, 1988, pp. 93-116.
- Friedrich Schmidt, Christian Späth: Feuerstein types of the Upper Cretaceous Heligoland, their stratigraphic occurrence and their comparison with other occurrences in N.-W. Germany. In: Staringia. 6, 1981, pp. 35-38 ( natuurtijdschriften.nl ).
