In Mesolithic times, weapons, tools and instruments made of animal bones, antlers, and teeth will have been
a normal and extensive part of man-made human equipment. Numerous Mesolithic bone artefacts have
been accidentally found or dredged out from organic sediments in northeast Germany. There are more than
550 bone points and around 70 other bone tools from 71 find spots from bogs and wetlands. It is the same
with some excavations: extraordinary numbers of Mesolithic bone artefacts came to light at Hohen Viecheln
in Mecklenburg and at sites Friesack 4 and Friesack 27 in Brandenburg. Since the excavation of many Mesolithic
sites everywhere in Northern Europe it has been very clear that implements and tools made of animal
bones were an essential part of human equipment. Animal bones were a ‘hard’ material, but still softer and
better workable than stone and silex, they were also different from wood. Therefore this raw material could
be used for producing objects with more or less hard ‘demands’: spear- and arrowheads, daggers, knives,
fishhooks, objects with a cutting edge, objects with a shaft hole, awls, chisels, ornaments, and others. The
abundance of Mesolithic bone objects in northeast Germany is in some respect the result of the specific geological
and geomorphological situation induced after the Weichselian glaciation of the region. There are four
ice-marginal valleys with side-channels crossing the country as depressions filled now mostly with humic/
wet sediments. Additionally there are many lakes and bogs with organic sediments along the shores, also
with many swampy areas. The ancient organic objects in these sediments are mostly preserved, even after
some periods of cultivation in the last three centuries. Such geomorphological conditions seem to have been
very favourable for the preservation of Mesolithic bone and antler relics.
Gramsch, B.: The Mesolithic bone industries of northeast Germany and their geo-archaeological background, in: Gross et al. (edd.), Working at The Sharp End at Hohen Viecheln, Untersuchungen und Materialien zur Steinzeit in Schleswig-Holstein und im Ostseeraum, Vol. 10, pp. 193–201, DOI: 10.23797/9783529018619-6.