The Birch as a Source of Raw Material during the Stone Age

Extract

It is hardly necessary to point out that birch was one of the common trees of the younger stone age and that its wood was much used for technical purposes. This must have been even more the case in mesolithic times and during the upper palaeolithic period, when during a certain period this tree dominated the landscape to such an extent that we can even speak of a Birch period.

The use of birch wood soon made men acquainted with its own special properties. If at present we are first able to demonstrate a knowledge of these for the neolithic and later stages, it is not to be doubted that this merely represented a continuation of a mesolithic accomplishment. There are two properties of birch which are particularly well exhibited by the pile-dwelling finds. The bark can be detached from the tree in thin layers, is extraordinarily easily worked and can be sewn like fine leather. But, secondly, it is possible to obtain a pitch from the bark, which after correct preparation makes a particularly useful glue. The pitch occurs especially in the bark and allows rolled up pieces of this to burn with a clear flame. These so-called birch-bark tapers, which even in modern times played an important part in illumination, are found not uncommonly in the Swiss pile-dwellings.