31 January 2012

Just Like Fire Would


Neolithic blade.
Found near Bremen, Germany, in August 2011.

I found this Neolithic blade made of either chert or flint while I was working in field archaeology last summer. It took me a while to take a picture of it and post it on here. I'm not too obsessed with the Neolithic Period - my favourite subjects are the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and certain periods within the first millenium AD - long story short, I don't know much about the Neolithic. A date of something between 4000 and 6000 BC should be fairly accurate though. I found a similar one on this website... that artifact is bigger in size though, and better in quality. I believe that the manufacturer of the blade I found didn't finish his job, maybe because he had to move on to another place.
Anyway, the find I made isn't anything special, but I wanted to share it on here because quite a few people have asked me why I chose to study archaeology. Here's my answer: It has been my childhood dream to become an archaeologist, and while I'd rather keep my part-time job as a bartender and turn that one into a full-time job after graduation, it's been a great three years and I loved almost every minute of it. I certainly loved the work out at several excavation sites across Northern Germany. To find something that has been buried for a few hundred, one thousand years or even a few thousand years, something that hasn't been touched by another human being since that day the artifact was forgotten somewhere or got lost, is quite amazing - even if it's only a blade. 
Click here and here to see more pictures of finds I made at excavation sites near Bremen and in Bardowick, respectively.


Blog post title taken from the song by The Saints.

2 comments:

Travel France Online said...

This is a brilliant find, even if it's unfinished. As you wrote finding an artifact that has been created thousand of years ago and disappeared for as long is like a little window into the distant past! The fibula is equally impressive even if more recent as it is a proper work of art, someone made it!
Good look for your new job! Hopes it works! :)

Dom said...

Thank you! I've held that job since November now - a good sign, because usually I quit within a month if I don't like the boss or if there are stupid co-workers or if I don't believe the place is meeting hygiene requirements. :-)