Abstract: When looking at archaeological pieces identified as pressure-flaker tools, the means and ways of integrating a stone reduction technique into the production of regular lithic blades/bladelets, so called ‘termed’ products, in Denmark at the end of the Early Scandinavian Mesolithic period are taken into consideration. In that, this paper examines the forms of interaction between territorially close populations known as possessing distinct technologies: in the Eastern Baltic regions, populations using percussion and pressure techniques in stone reduction as well as composite tools made of bone with lithic inserts, whereas, in the most Western Baltic regions (Denmark), populations using percussion techniques only, without having any knowledge of the composite tool. According to the lithic archaeological material, it is in this latter area of Maglemosian culture that pressure flaking in debitage appears ca. 7300/7000 calBC, thus raising the question of whether this sudden new practice originated from the arrival of a new population bringing with them the new (Eastern) technology, from a technological transfer between groups of crafting traditions initially distinct, or from itinerant craftsmen?
The research is conducted using several interconnected fields of analysis which form the structure of this paper, as following: 1) the physical principles inherent to the practice of the pressure debitage technique; 2) the ontology of the identified pressure technique as understood from a first experimental test; and, 3) the compatibility of shapes and use wear obtained from the replicated antler pressure-flaker tools compared with the corresponding archaeological pieces. Note that the patterns of wear observed on the used antler tools, and from which the pressure technique was identified and reproduced, are not compared by analogy with the archaeological pieces but, rather, are considered in relation to the tool’s dynamics in use, i.e. how the replicated antler tool is transformed from using it in pressure flaking. The first field relates to the biography of archaeological pieces identified as Maglemosian pressure-flaker tools represented by a sort of curve crutch made from removed red deer antler tine. The second field refers to the experimental research presentation and an observation of flintknappers’ postures that vary during the replication of the pressure debitage with this type of tool regardless of the production of bladelets, extracted anyway on a regular basis. The third and last field are in line with the collected observations and draw inferences based on the context of the findings for the Southwestern Scandinavian Mesolithic. Our investigation shows that these crutches were certainly used in pressure debitage. Appearing as suddenly as the pressure knapping, almost all the curve crutches derive from a single geographical area: the Danish Zealand region, where they also are found together in considerable numbers. They also come from archaeological dwelling sites which are markers of the beginning of the second great period of the Maglemosian culture called the ‘Sværdborg phase’ dated around ca. 7000 calBC. It lasted several centuries starting from after, or soon after, the transition from Boreal to Atlantic chronozones in Eastern Denmark, when the Baltic Sea started to take its actual shape. From a theoretical point of view, the study highlights the importance of the relationship to instrumentation when searching into technical change mechanisms to seek explanations of cultural evolution in Prehistory. In this paper, the appearance of a new (pressure) stone reduction technique seems to have no immediate relationship with the flintknappers’ skills (social vector) nor with the profitability expected from the new technique (economic vector), but rather, to be depending on its operability (technical vector). It was by means of an experimental test and, when better considering material evidence with regard to the role of the knapper in technical action—as a reflexive contra passive use of instrumentation regardless of his modus operandi—that records of body motion during the task and according to the tool employed gave new insights about transfer phenomenon: the actually possible inherent permeability in Stone Age between techniques apparently distinct. For what concerns the Mesolithic, the sudden appearance of the curve pressure-flaker tool used in debitage on the Maglemosian territory and almost unknown otherwise than in Zealand would be a consequence of a convergence of ontological order between different stone knapping techniques acquired which were concomitantly or diversely transported within the Southern Scandinavian area between 7300 and 7000 calBC. As a result, the Danish technique—the pressure mode on a (shoulder or chest) curve antler crutch—appears as a disruptive invention that would have arisen out of an assimilation by impregnation or direct contacts with foreign neighbouring (technologically Eastern-related) groups holding original techniques in stone reduction from a technological transfer developed in Zealand within the Maglemosian culture. In this, the Mesolithic pressure technique for flint reduction employed in Zealand and the culturally Maglemosian border-zone areas would have resulted from using pressure mode on a reinvented punch tool: the antler tine was adopted for its viscoelastic property while remaining long and curve in use, that is, adapted to pressure flaking on a flexible mode. Its appearance would have emerged at the end of the classic Maglemosian (transition between phases 2 and 3 with respectively Ulkestrup-Hut 1 and Sværdborg-1917) from using the antler tine in reflexive motion as a flaking tool involved in pressure debitage for termed lithic production from the new knowledge acquired in both the genuine punch technique and the standing pressure, then on the flexible straight crutch. It seems then that the driving force of human cultural evolution during this Mesolithic period in this part of the Southern Scandinavia area might have arisen more from how things (pressure flaking) were precisely achieved, rather than just replicated in practice. As a future research hypothesis, it follows that technical change in the manufacture of common cultural products would arise only when techniques are genuine adequate to regular behavior in technical task, although the ‘ignition’ factor for change could have a social-origin. In this, how regular technical practices were conducted in intimate details would considerably pertain to issues relative to socio-historical scenario reconstruction. But, since the occupation layers in the Danish context involved are still badly dated when this technical shift occurred in the Maglemosian transitional phase 2/3, scenario about specific, multiple or with multi-scale entryroutes between neighbouring territories and the presumed established populations needs to be refined, notably with the study of the lithic productions in its most conformity to such experimental records (aspects of the bulb, characters of the bladelets’ lips according to the various modes highlighted through the flexible contra the stiff used crutch, etc.).