by Till Ernstson
Since the beginning of the year 2006 about 40 excavation pits have been performed in theenvirons of the Holocene Tüttensee meteorite impact crater (Rappenglück et al. 2004, CIRT2004, 2006) in order to investigate the stratigraphy and the composition of the impact ejecta(Bunte Breccia; CIRT 2006). Here, I report on the first find of an anthropogenic artifact encountered amidst the impact breccia from excavation pit No. 35.
In nearly all excavation pits within a radius of 1000 m around Lake Tüttensee, the stratigraphy down to a depth of 1.5 m exhibits (CIRT 2006):
- recent soil and humus
- a layer of Tüttensee impact ejecta (“Bunte Breccia”) composed of strongly shattered and heavily corroded cobbles and boulders in a clayey matrix also containing organic material (among others up to 5 % wood)
- fossil soil horizon or autochthonous ground (lacustrine clay) containing organic material (tufts of hair, bones, wood, teeth)
The artifact under discussion (Figs. 1 – 4) comes from the impact ejecta layer that is up to one meter thick. It contains smashed fluvio-glacial Alpine cobbles and boulders among them quartzites and various other metamorphic rocks, sandstones decomposed to sand, and most notably the fractured and skeletal corroded carbonate rocks (Fig. 5). The latter are assumed to have obtained their peculiar sculpture by impact nitric-acid dissolution and/or carbonate decarbonization/melting (CIRT 2006).
Fig. 1, Fig. 2. The drilled quartzite boulder recovered from the Tüttensee impact ejecta layer.
Within this material and at a depth of about 1 m of excavation pit no. 35, the externally intact 17.6 cm long and 8.4 cm thick quartzite boulder was found. A funnel-shaped “picked” dent passes over into a drilled hole that breaks off midway through the boulder (Figs. 1, 2). The initially picked cone with an upper 4.5-cm diameter and a 3 cm-depth (Fig. 1) suggests the use of a chisel, possibly an elongated quartzite chop. A central rise at the base of the hole (Figs. 3, 4) proves it was made as a core drilling with a rapidly rotating hollow rod, possibly a linkage of deer antler, elder or hollow bone.
Fig. 3, Fig. 4. Close-up of the bore. The central rise at the base proves the use of a hollow rod,possibly a linkage of deer antler, elder or hollow bone.
A drilling in such a tough silicate rock has been shown to be possible, and it is referred to Lu et al. (2005) having described a drilled corundum axe from China. From Central Europe, however, a reference object is obviously not known. Not even from the Northern Germany megalithic culture, a drilled axe has been reported that was made of Silex (flint) and thus of a material of comparable hardness.