Open-cast flint mining, long blade production and long distance exchange: an example from Bulgaria
Résumé
In the early 5th millenium, a vaste area termed 'Graphite Pottery Zone' in the Balkan Peninsula underwent radical transformation: emergence of hereditary social hierarchy, specialization and regionalization of productions, highly organized long distance exchange, and technological innovations. A particular aspect of the latter was the specialized production of very long flint blades. In north-east Bulgaria, Ravno near Razgrad, is a good-quality flint deposit, and the tell of Kamenovo is a characteristic village of the Graphite Pottery Zone, with two major differences: the village is located on a flint deposit and the inhabitants produced long blades by lever pressure as prestige items. The raw material procurement of Kamenovo combines exploitation of flint on the site for domestic production and further exploitation a short distance away (Ravno) of high quality raw material for specialized production. Settlement location away from the Ravno source may reflect the fact that Ravno was probably exclusively exploited by specialists, maybe as a protected area, and that long blade debitage was not an intensive production. One may suggest that intensive exploitation developed when an object was not or no longer a prestige item.
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