Mesolithic Bone and Antler Implements from the North Sea and from the Netherlands.

Abstract

In the last few years a number of bone and antler artifacts have been dredged up from the North Sea.They are dated to the Late Preboreal -Early Boreal by means of the curve of the relative rise of sea-level.Some of them can be dated to the same period by means of the archaeological parallels at some of the rieh northern Early Mesolithic sites, others have no dated counterparts.They all form welcome additional evidence to the Leman and Ower Banks barbed point, found in 1931.In the Netherlands also new finds of this period were made.Those, found in the western part of the country document the earliest occupation there at a level of about -25 m. o.D. Some older finds have been recently recognized in the museum collections.The finds, 24 in number, throw some new light on the Early Mesolithic occupation of the North Sea Basin and on the Dutch Mesolithic.In a geographical Situation, well comparable with the Danish Isles during the Maglemose occupation, another distinct group must have centred in the southern North Sea.But during the Boreal the inhabitants were dislodged by the encroaching sea.The Dutch finds and all other 'Maglemose' bone and antler implements found to the south of the Gore Axe Culture area are no proof of an extension of this culture into these regions, but they must represent the bone and antler tool kit of the Early Mesolithic groups already defined there.The typological parallels of the implements in the north-European find assemblages stress the cultural relationships of the northern groups with core axes and the southern groups lacking this type of implenient, s is apparent from recent studies of the flint assemblages.