Late use of chipped stone tools: A case study of Viking age and Medieval material from middle Sweden

Sammanfattning: Stone tools define earlier prehistory but the extent of their usage in later periods remains uncertain, as the archaeological community tends to focus on trademark materials from respective time periods. Accordingly, usage of chipped stone such as quartz and flint in later periods, tends to be ignored or regarded as residual from earlier Stone age activities, resulting in that valuable knowledge is lost. Therefore, this thesis aims to critically review the Viking age and Medieval (750-1500 AD) usage of chipped stone tools, with a geographical focus on middle Sweden. The thesis executes four case studies from two regions, three rural settlements in Värmland, and one urban settlement in Mälardalen, dated from the Viking age to the Middle age. The chipped stone material from these case studies are investigated via the theoretical perspective’s affordance and entanglement, and the two methodologies lithics analysis and use-wear analysis. The result points towards that in Värmland there existed a local stone using practice in one of the case study sites, where quartz scrapers were used in fur production. In Mälardalen a substantial flint using practice existed that might have been spread in the local area and have connections to southern Scandinavia. The thesis suggests that the attributes of late usage of chipped stone in rural areas mainly is based on the unique affordances that quartz of flint provides. However, the usage of chipped stone in urban settlements seems to be based on a tradition and habit of using chipped stone that might have parallels in other urban settlement and in southern Scandinavia. Further, chipped stone tools can be seen as entangled in complex relationships between flint and quartz, fur-products, stone-smithing knowhow, and other goods, incorporating both rural and urban settlements.