Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia Xv

In 2012 it was 50 years ago that the initial independent core of the Faculty of Archaeology was founded. On the occasion of this 50th anniversary the Board of the Faculty of Archaeology has asked the editors of the Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia to produce a special volume of Analecta and open its pages not only for Prehistoric research but to all Archaeological disciplines. The editors invited the permanent staff of the Faculty to provide a contribution. The End Of Our Fifth Decade is the result. The subjects offered are very diverse and provide the reader with a written Tableau de la troupe', as it was intended to be. The first contributions are about the present. They deal with the problem of preserving archaeology in situ, the evaluation of twenty years of the Malta convention and the current variety of approaches in archaeology. However the rest of the book is about the past. This volume is organised in such a way that you go back in time and as good archaeologists we start from the top and dig our way into the past. The part about the past starts in the 17th century AD in the Caribbean and end with research on a 300 000 years old site from Germany."

In this research the stone and flint artefacts of the site Swifterbant are analysed. Attention is focussed on the Neolithic occupation phase of the prehistoric creek system (c. 4300 - 4000 cal BC) where archaeological traces were found on several levee and river dune sites. This study shows that there is a larger variability in site types than originally presumed. It is established that these sites are all part of one settlement system in which they all had a different function. This thesis comprises a monograph on the research history of the site and the different aspects of the lithic research such as typological analysis, technological attribute analysis, raw material analysis and use-wear analysis, in combination with a detailed inventory (catalogue). All this leads to new insights into the use of lithic artefacts. The importance of stone tool morphology, the selective gathering of stone tool blanks or the use of two different fl­int production sequences are but a few of these interesting aspects. Other topics concern tool function, mobility, raw material access and use, cultural markers and social identity. In combining the results from this research with that of other Swifterbant sites a better understanding of the different aspects of prehistoric stone and fl­int industries is gained.