Stone Age Sculpture or Sharpener?

The picturesque village of Sweikhuizen in the south of the Netherlands is well known for its Stone Age history. It is located on an old terrace of the river Meuse (St Pietersberg terrace) overlooking the town of Geleen and its petrochemical industry, situated on a lower and younger Meuse terrace (Caberg terrace), where now the Geleen beek flows (see previous post 'the first peopling of the Meuse valley' for and overview of the sequence of Meuse terraces in the southern Netherlands).

Figure 1: Geleen beek, a brook that runs through an ancient river terrace (Caberg terrace) of the Meuse. In the back the older St Pietersberg terrace can be seen, on which Sweikhuizen is situated.

Sweikhuizen is especially known for a Late Palaeolithic (Magdalenian) hunter-gatherer’s settlement that was discovered in the 1980s (1), consisting of a ring of stones, delineating a circular tent, and numerous Magdalenian blade tools, which I briefly highlighted in a previous post (Let there be light). Some of these tools from Sweikhuizen (shown in Figure 2) can be seen at the Limburgs Museum in Venlo.

Figure 2: Magdalenian blade tools from Sweikhuizen (Limburgs Museum Venlo)

Near the site a sign has been put up with a poem to mark the encampment where 10,000 years before the common era a group of people hunted horses and reindeer on a plateau of moss and grass. Where they lived in tents made from animal hides during the summer, until the winter cold pushed them southward. Year on year they would return to these rich hunting grounds, where we stand now, like a homecoming to a wide vista.

Figure 3: Near the Magdalenian reindeer hunter's site there is a sign with a poem in Dutch to highlight that 10,000 years before the common Era reindeer hunters roamed here

A field near the Magdalenian site has been a rich source of stone age finds, ranging from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age. Shown below, as an example, are two Neolithic polished axe fragments that we found there.

Figure 4: Neolithic flint axe fragments from Sweikhuizen

The Neolithic axe fragments, made from polished Rijckholt flint, were found in a field near Hogeweg, locally called De Heugde, located on an elevated area of this Meuse river terrace, overlooking the village of Sweikhuizen.

Figure 5: View from the Hogeweg, overlooking the village of Sweikhuizen

In the same field where we found the polished axes, one of my daugters, whith a sharp eye for unusual objects, found an ovoid pebble with a surprising cavity.

Figure 6: Revinien quartzite pebble from Hogeweg in Sweikhuizen

At first glance it seemed to be an ordinary water-rolled pebble of Revinien quartzite. This quartzite, with its characteristic angular surface impressions, is very common in Meuse sediments across the Netherlands. Its formation dates back to the Late-Cambrian and originates from the Belgian and French Ardennes. An example from Hogeweg in Sweikhuizen is shown below. This flattend disc-shaped blueish grey quartzite pebble is pockmarked with very distinctive angular impressions of the cubic pyrite crystals that used to decorate its surface before they were eroded away by river transportation and deposition.

Figure 7: Revinien quartzite pebble with its characterisitic angular impressions

Just like the example shown above (Figure 7), Revinien quartzite is commonly found as flattened disc-shaped pebbles. Ovoid shaped examples are unusual and in Figure 8 and 9, a more detailed overview of the ovoid-shaped Revinien quartzite pebble that my daughter found is presented, showing its overall dimensions and the shape of the cavity. Some of the angular pyrite crystal impression scars are still visible on the exterior surface (and inside the cavity) but have been mostly rubbed off.

Upon closer inspection of the ovoid pebble in Figures 6 and 8, I noticed that the surface of the stone did not show the natural weathering patina typical for this stone type. The ovoid pebble appears to have been purposely flattened on either side and after cleaning a surprisingly deep recess was laid bare showing clear signs of an unnatural polishing. The side-lit images below (Figure 10) show regular striation marks in the fine-grained quartzite, typical for polished surfaces, on the inside of the cavity (left) as well as the exterior surface of the pebble (right and below).

Figure 10: Side-lit images of the inside of the cavity and the exterior of the pebble showing micro textures akin to polished objects

The micro-texture on the quartzite pebble is akin to that seen on whetstones from the same material commonly used in the Iron Age. However, it's hard to imagine how a round pebble with a cavity could have been used as a whetstone. It's possible that, perhaps, it was employed as a sharpening tool for bone objects such as points, awls and/or needles. However, most examples of bone tool sharpening stones from the stone age resemble the grooved sandstone sharpener from the Magdalenian site of Duruthy (Sorde, Landes, France), shown below (2).

Figure 11: Grooved sandstone sharpener from the Magdalenian site of Duruthy (Sorde, Landes, France)

An extensive literature search into (bone) sharpening stones, did not reveal any examples with similar features to the polished Revinien pebble described here. Interestingly, during the literature search I came across an unrelated article describing a roughly similarly shaped object, carved from course Coniacien limestone, from Laussel in the Dordogne, representing both a penis and a vulva (Figure 12 (3)). Remarkably, the dimensions of the object (the height of the ovally shaped glans is 50 mm, and its maximum width is 43 mm), and the position and direction of the groove, are very similar to the Revinien quartzite pebble from Sweikhuizen. The object shown in Figure 12 is thought to originate from the upper Aurignacian levels, although the exact stratigraphic position of many finds from this site in the Dordogne remains unclear.

Figure 12: Le gland pénien sculpté de Laussel (Dordogne)

The phallus and vulva are commonly represented in Upper Palaeolithic art in Europe, occuring over a broad time range and becoming more abstract towards the final stages of this era in the Stone Age. Below is an early example from the Aurignacian levels of La Ferrassie, showing the pronounced three-dimensional aspect of the object representing a vulva, showing a similarly shaped groove as seen the quartzite pebble from Sweikhuizen (Photo by Don Hitchcock. Origninal on display at Musée National de Préhistoire, Les Eyzies) (4).

Figure 13: Sculpture of a vulva from La Ferrassie

The purpose of these objects still remains a mystery and they may have been intended as fertility symbols, as has been suggested for the many venus sculptures known from this era. I could also imagine that mobile art such as this might have been used as 'entertainment' for the long and lonely winter nights away from home, whilst waiting for the next reindeer hunt to come along.

It is impossible to date this surface find from Sweikhuizen, but its unusual ovoid shape for a Revinien quartzite pebble and the micro-texture present on the exterior surface of the pebble, and inside the very regularly groove shaped cavity, provide evidence that this piece has been worked by human hands. At the moment we can only speculate whether it is an early bone point 'pencil' sharpener or a sculpted representation of a vulva and/or phallus. If it is the latter, it would indeed be a very unique piece in the Stone Age history of the Netherlands.

Figure 14: Carved Revinien quartzite peble from Sweikhuizen

References:

1) ARTS, N. & DEEBEN, J. 1988. De opgraving, analyse en interpretatie van een Magdalénien nederzetting bij Sweikhuizen, provincie Limburg. Intern rapport AAC. Amsterdam.

2) DACHARY et al., 2012. Textural and geochemical analysis of a pumice polisher with grooves from the Magdalenian site of Duruthy (Sorde, Landes, France). Paleo Revue D'Archéologie Préhistorique.

3) DUHARD, J-P. & ROUSSOT, A. 1988. Le gland pénien sculpté de Laussel (Dordogne). Bulletin de la Societé Préhistorique Francaise.

4) Don's Maps: https://www.donsmaps.com/vulvastoneage.html