For body or for spirit? Intriguing red recoloration and polish on flint tools from Rzucewo culture, Poland

Abstract

Rzucewo culture is a unique Late Neolithic/Early Bronze phenomenon related to some extent to exploitation of marine resources. For years these people were called seal hunters due to numerous faunal remains found in their settlements located on the southern Baltic Sea coast. It is also known for intensive procurement and processing of amber. Rzucewo culture groups left numerous flint assemblages produced mainly of locally collected flint pebbles with the help of splintered technique. Technology of flint production was very simple and uniform from site to site.Eponymous Rzucewo site delivered several thousand lithics with tool group dominated by simple retouched flakes and scraping tools like end-scrapers, scrapers and side-scrapers along with groovers and perforators, notches and truncations. The inventory itself does not show differences as compared to other Rzucewo culture sites and certainly is rooted in the older Funnel Beaker culture lithic tradition. Additionally, two specific features distinguish Rzucewo culture inventory form other Neolithic industries. First is the presence of tools with re-colored red surfaces that were later polished. These were not only small axes or chisel-like tools but also pebbles of raw material, and variety of other tools. Second is a specific polish observed with bare eye along the working edges of scraping tools and very often also reddish-yellowish in color. Genesis of that polish is not clear but may be related with amber processing. What is obvious in both cases, red ochre seems to be an important factor, perhaps of symbolic nature.The paper discusses results of technological, typological and traceological considerations aiming to shed light on the genesis of above phenomenon. It also attempts to evaluate whether this polish was of any importance for the subsistence or reflects extra-utilitarian cultural behavior.