A unique beautiful curved flint artefact! Excavating a Late Comb Ceramic Culture dwelling site in Pitäjänmäki (Helsinki). Day 4/5

Today we started off as usual at 10 o´clock. After a short briefing about yesterdays finds and the general progress of the dig it was again time to get our hands dirty. 

The assumption that the finds in the bottom part of the find layer might surprise us became true when a large, beautiful and complete flint artefact was found shortly before the day ended. The item resembles a so called curved slate knife which can be associated with the Typical Comb Ceramic Culture. Despite my over 30 years as a field archaeologista and conducting more than 200 excavations I have never encountered one that was made of flint before!

Curved flint knife from Pitäjänmäki Nuolipuisto.

The knife shows signs of wear on the convex edge while the concave edge is as sharp as it was knapped yesterday. It is not entirely clear what the curved knives were used for but skinning of animals is one possibility. Like so many items this one too might have been used for many different tasks.

Signs of wear and use on the convex edge of the flint knife.

The potsherds found today were larger than during the previous days and at least two concentrations of potsherds from three different vessels could be observed. 

Typical Comb Ceramic Culture potsherds

Tomorrow is the last day of this years excavation. Already at this stage I would like to thank all of the participants for making the week a very memorable one. A special thanks to archaeologist Indu Ramanayaka (Sri Lanka) and archaeology student Erik Djuvfelt (Umeå Universitet). It was a true pleasure to get to know you both. 

Flint knife and blue skies (possibly like 5 000 years ago)