Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (3.1976/1979)

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AXEL STEENSBERG

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REVIEW/BUCHBESPRECHUNG

Hans Jurgen Muller-Beck:
Holz ger ate and Holzbearbeitung. Mit zwei Bei-
tragen von F. Schweingruber. Seeberg Burgaschi-
see-Siid, Teil 5. Acta Bernensia II. Bern 1965.
This well documented and abundantly illustrated
publication is an important work not only because
of its wealth of archaeological facts but also because
of the author’s wide horizon. He tries to explain the
function of the well preserved tools found in the
Lake Dwellings of Switzerland with parallels in
Europe as well as in other parts of the world.
The first chapter contains complete and fragmen-
tary tools: axes and adzes, tools for agriculture,
clubs, spades and shovels, harvesting knives and
sickles, weapons and utensils for food preparation.
The second chapter is concerned with carpentry,
the next three with problems of interpretation of
the excavated material and the last two, by F.
Schweingruber, with wood-morphology. There
are summaries in French, English and Russian, and
51 beautifully reproduced plates.
Professor Miiller-Beck explains - in agreement
with H. Kothe’s “Furchenstocktheorie” - some
bifurcated hook-shaped tools as “hand-ards” for
cultivation. However, other explanations might be
relevant. In the Highlands near Mount Hagen in
Papua New Guinea the reviewer saw hooks of ex-
actly the same shape used as rakes for removing
grass that was cut. Considering how important
twigs and leaves of trees were as cattle-fodder in the
lake settlements (according to J. Troels-Smith) the
Swiss hooks might be explained in a similar way.
The parallel Muller-Beck draws upon from mo-

dern China is in fact a tool only 88 cm long, its
“sole” being 16 cm long. Was this tool pulled
through the soil? Or was it a hand hoe? At least the
hooks from Burgaschisee-Sud are heavier, prob-
ably too heavy to be pulled without a stilt behind to
stabilise them? And in fact the ards he refers to-the
Triptolemos ard from Greece and the Jutland ards
from the Bronze- and Iron ages - have all a stilt
mortised into the rear end of their soles. How it was
with the “ard” from Lago di Ledro in northern
Italy in that respect is unfortunately still unknown.
Very well-preserved examples of shovels and/or
spades were found, and they have parallels in
France, probably of the same Cortaillod culture?
The lower edges of them are square, and the bodies
of the blades elegantly slim. Another piece from the
Michelsberg-Pfyn Phase is pointed like the
paddle-shaped spades of New Guinea.
The explanation of the long beak of the famous
Egolzwil-knife, curved downwards at a right angle
to the flint-edge, is the same as the reviewer’s in
“Ancient Harvesting Implements” (1943), i.e. as a
“palamarka” with which one catches the ears or
straw before cutting. From the bent-down beak
Rudolf Strobel (1939) deduced that the grain could
not have been harvested near the ground. Some of
the reaping knives from Egolzwil are extended with
a straight beak as a palamarka and only one flint
blade inserted, pointed obliquely outwards from
the handle. A great variety of short knives are also
illustrated, including their wooden hafts often fur-
nished with a hole for suspension or for a hand-
strap. - A more attractive work than this hand-
somely reproduced book is rarely seen.
Axel Steensberg