Flint Mining in Neolithic Denmark

Extract

Throughout the Neolithic Period the inhabitants of what nowadays is Denmark profited from the country's wealth of flint for implements and weapons. T There were quantities of large and small nodules to be picked up along the shores, but even the most plentiful supplies were not always ample for their needs. In the early part of the Late Stone Age, when numbers of large stone axes were required for forest clearance, and at the close of the Neolithic Period when the idea was adopted of making daggers of extraordinary dimensions, while simultaneously a considerable export trade was started of implements to the flintless regions of the rest of Scandinavia, surface flint no.longer sufficed. There had also to be a rational exploitation of the occurrences of excellent pure flint in chalk deposits that were undisturbed and relatively easy of access.