Normannsvika slate blade

Source term: bromme / skiferbromme

bromme: Norwegian for a bullroarer (cf. brumme, to hum or drone); skiferbromme, 'slate bullroarer'.

At Normannsvika on Melkøya, an island of a few hectares off Hammerfest, the excavators came down onto the floor of Tuft 1 and found two slate tools lying flat, one two centimetres above the other: a double-edged knife, and what they wrote down as probably a bullroarer. Both sat level with the base of the hearth stones beside them, which is how the team knew they were on the real living floor and not in later fill. Charcoal from the same layer came back at 5535 ± 64 radiocarbon years, somewhere between 4500 and 4240 BC. The date belongs to the floor, not to the thing lying on it.

I lag C ble det blant annet funnet to skiferredskaper, en tveegga kniv og det som trolig er en bromme (Ts11401.149 og 150).

In layer C, two slate tools were found, among other things: a double-edged knife and what is probably a bullroarer (Ts11401.149 and 150).

Hesjedal, Ramstad and Niemi, Undersøkelsene på Melkøya, Tromura 36 (2009), p. 28

Particulars

Object

Ts11401.150, a worked slate blade published as probably a bullroarer; excavated lying flat on the occupation floor of Tuft 1 in layer C, two centimetres above a double-edged slate knife (Ts11401.149), with both objects level with the base of the adjacent hearth stones.

Function

Not recorded.