Occupations and professions

Practice makes perfect

The first craftsmen were probably the Palaeolithic makers of simple knapped hand axes and the more developed splinter and blade tools. Neolithic inventions, that is, shaping stone tools by polishing them on an even harder stone plate and drilling a hole into them for a more secure fastening of the shaft, raised the efficiency of axes, hoes, maces, and hammers (and their production) in a new dimension. Stone remained a popular raw material for millennia: grindstones, hand mills and some tools (casting moulds, fire stones, whetstones) were made from stone until the end of the Migration Period.

Wood was used for more than tools, tool shafts, and weapons: carpentry was among the first crafts to develop, and the invention of joining, a technique requiring advanced skills, made the construction of log houses and joined well linings possible. Craftspeople working with animal bones produced special tools (smoothing plates, bodkins, hoes, horse harness parts, bow plates, buttons, needle cases, combs, detanglers, and skates). Potters used refined clay tempered with different materials to make durable vessels in countless designs for diverse purposes, shaping, finishing, and decorating them in various ways before and after firing. Spindle whorls in the archaeological record are the relics of spinning and ceramic loom weights of weaving.

The oldest sewing knits, comprising a bone needle case with iron needles and a piece of thread in their eyes, are known from the Avar Period. The relics of prehistoric metalworking include the remains of the related special equipment and waste (tuyers, casting bowls, ladles, and moulds, anvils, hammers, chisels, punchers, graving tools, and casting scrap), assemblages of accumulated damaged and failed items, and ingots.

The new weapons, jewellery items, tools, and horse harnesses appearing at the dawn of the Iron Age heralded not only the upcoming fundamental transformation in the way of life but also a groundbreaking technological innovation: ironworking. By the Migration Period, the toolkit of metalsmiths had become highly diverse, comprising pincers, anvils, hammers, diverse hole and pattern punches, plate shears, drawplates and drawing dies, rasps, weights, and scales.