The use of “honey flint” blades in Central and Southern Greece

Abstract

This paper aims at a simple presentation of varieties of “honey flint” blades found in the Neolithic of Greece that are characterised by a fine and glossy texture and by their translucency. They have often been confused with the Balkan “honey flint” as they have never been published in colour to illustrate these features. Their precise origin is unknown, but they possibly come from the Ionian geological zone in north-west Greece or south-west Albania. They were produced by pressure flaking, including pressure flaking with a lever, and traded as mesial fragments over large areas of Greece, mainly in the Early and Middle Neolithic (ca. 6500–5600 BC). They were primarily used as sickle inserts but often underwent many cycles of rejuvenation and when the edges could no longer be rejuvenated, re-used on other materials, transformed into other tool types or re-flaked to produce smaller flakes and tools.
Contrary to obsidian, they have never been studied systematically, neither from a petrographic nor an archaeological viewpoint. Consequently, if some of the technological and functional features can be specified, many questions remain unanswered regarding their geographic and chronological distribution, mode of distribution (one or several exchange networks?) and potential symbolic value.