Twee vuurmakers van vuursteen van het type Rijckholt

Samenvatting

In this article we describe two artefacts with rounded ends which we interpret as strike-a-lights. The first, which resembles a tanged point, was found in 1920 by A.E. van Giffen in a largely destroyed Neolithic (Funnel Beaker Culture) stone cist near Valthe in the province of Drenthe. The second is a large retouched blade from a surface site in Germany, only approximately 75 metres from the Dutch-German border in the south-eastern part of Drenthe. The blade can most likely be dated in the latter part of the Neolithic or the Bronze Age. Both artefacts are rare in the sense that they are made from non-local flint originating from the southern part of the Netherlands. The flint should be referred to as Rijckholt-type, since it is not clear, especially in the case of the Valthe specimen, that it was mined in the Rijckholt area in the southern part of the province of Limburg. At present approximately 10 artefacts (mostly blades, blade fragments and axes or axe fragments) from Rijckholt or Rijckholt-type flint are known from the northern Netherlands, most of them from the province of Drenthe. The specimen from Valthe is exceptional in more than one respect since its tanged appearance is not paralleled in a Funnel Beaker context. The original context of the second strike-a-light is unknown.