The Krumlovský Les Type

Sampled sites:
• Krumlovský Les

The chert was originally formed in Jurassic and/or Cretaceous marine sediments that once covered large parts of the pre-Cambrian magmatic base of the Czech Massif. At the beginning of the Paleogene (Tertiary) these limestones were weathered away, leaving behind a deposit of chert nodules with a characteristic dark cortex of 'Desert Varnish' (see below). During the Lower Miocene (Eggenburg-Ottnang, according to the local nomenclature, which would be Burdigalian to Langhian in the international chronostratigraphy) these nodules got trapped in coastal sandy sediments, in which they are found today.
The blackish cortex, however, cannot be taken as an absolute characteristic for this type of material: Other residual deposits can show similar surfaces and on the other hand some nodules still have some chalky material attached to them.

Secondary reddish impregnated material like the banded flake above can show colours in the range of 5R 4/3-4/4 (weak red) and 5R 5/6 (red), as well as purple colours that can't be found in the standard Munsell Soil Colour charts.

The matrix of the multicoloured breccia (for examples see below) shows a very wide variation of colours ranging from (pale) yellows like 2.5Y 7/3 - 8/4 (pale yellow) and 10YR 7/6 (yellow), via pale, weak and light reds (10R 7/6 to 7/4 and 6/4 to 5/4, 7.5R 6/6, 2.5YR 7/4) to really red (7.5R 5/8, 10R 5/6). The embedded pieces of flint are mostly of the same greyish colour as the regular nodules.

The 'typical' cortex is mostly black (N 2) to very dark bluish grey (10B and 5PB 3/1) with occasional brown (7.5YR 4/3) or reddish brown (5YR 4/4) spots and patches, reaching only a few millimetres under the surface, but like mentioned above, some nodules posses a white or very light grey, thicker cortex. The siliceous mass is mostly opaque to slightly translucent.
The finer material of this type can be macroscopically easily confused with some types of erratic Baltic flint and several Jurassic cherts, especially if the desert varnish is absent.

The nodules are mostly fist-sized, but we saw some larger specimens, up to ca. 25 cm. In the literature dimensions of up to 30 cm and even 50 cm are mentioned (Oliva 2003). The flint-breccia does occur in very large banks or blocks, up to 2 meters and possibly even more, although we only found significantly smaller pieces on the surface.

In those two areas there are differences in the type of flint mined, and with it the dating of the prehistoric activity. The Northern part, being the older one, exploits the classical 'beach cobbles', and has been in production (at least) since the local Later Neolithic Moravian Painted Ware (Late Lengyel), although the abundance of the chert in Early Neolithic (LBK / Linear Pottery Culture) contexts makes an earlier start probable.
In the Southern group of mines additionally the multicoloured breccia was extracted, and saw most activity during the Early Bronze Age Unětice Culture. Surprisingly, there are indications that the site was still (or again) in use during the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age. Besides two burials in an abandoned shaft, there are numerous finds of Hallstatt pottery (Oliva 2003), but no ¹⁴C dates yet.
This sounds remarkably like the situation at the Chocolate Flint mine of Wierzbica-Zele in Southern Poland, parts of which are also dating to the Bronze/Iron Age transition (Lech, H. & J. Lech 1995a)

Excavations on the site have been carried out since 1995, but have been very limited in extend. Shafts seem to have been of the simple type with some small side-workings and vary in depth between 2.5 and 8 metres (see photo in Oliva 2003, p. 249, of a very brave archaeologist sitting at the bottom of an unsecured shaft excavated to a depth of 8 m in sand!), with round to oval plans 1-2 meters in diameter.
To give you an idea of the scale of the workings, from one single shaft come 150 000 lithics, of which were 7340 cores weighing more than 1200 kg in total (Oliva 2003, p. 246).

The coarser Type I is comparable in its knapping properties with Valkenburg-type flint: flakes tend to be wide and flat and hardly show any strike-wave ripples or striations and have a matte surface when freshly struck.
Type II material is workable like most erratic Baltic flints, but with a slight tendency to hinges. A definite setback are the very small dimensions of these finer nodules, which bring your fingers very much in the danger-zone.
The breccia isn't really great either, but it comes in large blocks and is very well cemented. It has the knapping properties of very fine-grained quartzites like the material from Northern Bohemia.

This situation changes dramatically during the Early Neolithic (Linear Pottery ulture/LBK), as the area seems to have been quite densely populated and the interest in its resources is renewed. From the direct surroundings, several large production-type settlements like Vedrovice (Mateiciucová 1997, with further references) are known. In this period the Krumlovský les material enters the large-scale LBK lithic distribution-network and is found on sites all over Moravia and locally in Bohemia (like in Bylany, a distance of 130 km). On the other hand, exotic materials like radiolarite, at least in part from Szentgál, and Jurassic flint from the Cracow-region enter the region. Interestingly these imports constitute more than half of all lithic grave-goods in the cemetery contemporaneous with the settlement in Vedrovice, but are only found in the graves of men and children. Females got only products from the local material (Mateiciucová 1997).
This should be the perfect fodder for 'gender archaeologists'. Depending from your point of view, you can either argue that females were consistent lower in rank than males, and only got the inferior local material, or you can follow the feminists and say that it must have been a matrilineal, matrilocal society, where only the 'Earth Mothers' were associated with these precious resources from the deep.

After the early Eneolithic (Lengyel culture) the importance of Krumlovský les declines, probably due to the intensifying of mining-activities at Stránská skála near Brno, but even so, a substantial percentage of the lithics from the Corded Ware culture in Moravia and Selesia come from this source.

Little is published about the distribution of the Krumlovský Les Type outside the Czech republic. We expect a rapid fall-off in most directions, especially towards the northwest, where the qualitative better sources of Stránská skála are situated only 30 kilometres away. Towards the East and South lie the sources of high-quality Radiolarite of Vlára and Antonshöhe respectively, but as this material comes mostly in small packages, there might be some distribution in these directions. Most "export" will probably have taken place towards the Southwest, into Austria and to the Northwest, towards Southern Bohemia. Unfortunately, Austria is a bit of a white spot on the map, as there is not much published about raw materials here.

FlintSource samples 133-136 and 226-229.

The coordinates given were taken at the point where we collected our sample 226, and corresponds roughly with sub-site IV (Oliva 1997) at the Southern end of the Northern area (see above).

The Southern area starts a kilometre to the South-Southwest around

Lat. 49° 01' 55" N
Long. 016° 24' 05" E
(Mapdatum WGS 84)

If you are coming from Moravský Krumlov, finding the right way out, which leaves the town at the eastern side, can be a bit tricky. The surest direction you have is toward the railway station (nádraží), which is situated directly along the road towards Jezeřany-Maršovice.
After driving through the woods for about 8 kilometres, you pass a very small quarry at the right hand side of the road, and after a sharp curve to the left, you are about to leave the fenced-in parts of the woods. Park here, and go either North or South. Don't give any attention to the pit mentioned above: it lies a bit too high to cut into the Miocene sands-with-flints.

As we visited there were several spots where you could climb over the fence with the help of some type of wooden construction, but you might have to look around a bit to find a good spot to enter.

When visiting bring a copy of the map in Oliva 1997 or 2003 with the mining areas, as well as a topographical map like no. 83 "Okolí Brna" in the 1:50 000 series of the Klub Českých Turistů, which can be bought in good bookshops in every larger town.

As the area is an important archaeological site, not threatened by development, and only punctually excavated, do not dig here. As always, if you have to take a sample (for scientific purposes only!), do not take more than you strictly need, avoid knapping in the area, do not collect cultural material, and report important finds to the local authorities.

The first two pieces below do not come from the mine site itself, but were found on the surface of ploughed fields near Jezeřany, just to the west. Both specimens are very fine grained, and show why the Type I material is sometimes hard to distinguish from other types of material.
The four photos at the bottom give a good idea what the chert-breccia of the Kubšice type look like. This material is quite distinct, and unlike any lithic raw material we have seen elsewhere.