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The back knife
As clear as glass and hard as steel. Rock crystal is a quartz mineral that occurs naturally along the Main Alpine Ridge where Mesolithic hunters occasionally used it to make tools and weapons. The blade found at the Joch Valley site is 13 mm long and only 7 mm wide. One long edge is razor-sharp. The other has been worked into a blunt shape like the back of a knife so that the blade can be attached to a wooden handle. The back knife may have served as a tool for cutting leather. Since rock crystal and flint have similar physical properties, they were worked in the same way.
- Rock crystal – beautiful and useful
- Tools made from rock crystal – a rare exception
- Microliths – multipurpose tools
- The daily hunt
Rock crystal – beautiful and useful
Colourless rock crystal consists of mineral quartz. Its natural deposits are concentrated along the Main Alpine Ridge. The material is brittle, its fracture pattern scallop-shaped (conchoidal). The material properties of rock crystal are similar to those of flint, so the Mesolithic hunters of the Alpine region sometimes made their stone tools out of rock crystal. However, rock crystal is a little more difficult to work than flint. Whereas a blade-shaped flake of flint suitable for further shaping can be struck off any side of a flint nodule, in the case of rock crystal attention has to be paid to the crystal structure if usable pieces are to be obtained. Nevertheless, the working techniques used are the same for rock crystal and flint.
Tools made from rock crystal – a rare exception
As a raw material for making microliths, rock crystal is always an exception. The Mesolithic hunters of Central Europe always preferred flint as a material for making their tools and weapons. For this reason rock crystal has been found in only a few of the hundreds of Stone Age sites in the high Alpine mountains. Where such implements are found at all they generally account for only 1% to 10% of the total inventory of stone implements. The Joch Valley archaeological site, which is situated at an altitude of 2000 metres on the Main Alpine Ridge, is an exception. Here more than 50% of the tools and stone flakes found are made of rock crystal. This is probably due to the fact that this archaeological site is situated in the immediate vicinity of a natural deposit of rock crystal.
Microliths – multipurpose tools
The term microlith refers to small stone tools of the European Mesolithic period. Some of the razor-sharp flint blades and pointed tips of this period are only a few millimetres in length. To be useful they therefore needed a wooden shaft attached by means of tree resin and animal sinews. Microliths were used as tips for arrows and harpoons and as tools for removing the hair and flesh from the hides of prey. Their sharp blades also made it easy to cut up the meat and sinews of felled animals. They were also used to shape the wood used to make arrow shafts, bows, and spears.
Microliths are characterized by their geometric shape. Triangular shapes are especially characteristic of the early Mesolithic from 8000 to about 6000 BC, while in the later Mesolithic period from 6000 to 5000 BC trapezoidal shapes predominate.
The daily hunt
The people of the European Mesolithic hunted mostly with bow and arrow. Their preferred prey at higher altitudes in the Alps were herd animals such as ibex and chamois. In the forests the hunters pursued red deer. Bone harpoons, i.e. barbed spears, were sometimes used for catching fish.
The tips and barbs of the weapons were microliths of flint or rock crystal. These small spear points were attached to a wooden shaft by means of tree resin and animal sinews. The ends of the arrow shafts were fletched.
