MULDBJERG DWELLING PLACE—TROELS-SMITH 599 
Ficure 15.—Flake ax, the most common type of ax at the dwelling place. %size. (Draw- 
ing by B. Brorson Christensen.) 
therefore, they often broke during the process of manufacture. In 
some cases we have succeeded in fitting together the broken pieces of 
more or less finished drill points. In this way it has been possible to 
obtain a sort of slow-motion picture of the manufacture. First, one 
finds small flint blades chipped along one side; next, pieces chipped 
along both sides; then others in which the point has been finished but 
not yet worn by use; next, finished pieces which were broken in use; and 
finally, pieces which had been used for so long that the point was 
worn down and the blade, therefore, rejected. Only a small per- 
centage were used for this length of time. An amazingly great num- 
ber has been found, but for what purpose were they used? Some of 
the artifacts themselves give the answer. 
A wooden spoon had cracked and had been made usable again by 
drilling a hole on either side of the crack and binding it through the 
holes (pl. 3, fig. 2). Also some of the earthen pots had broken and had 
been repaired by drilling holes on both sides of the crack, tying the parts 
together with lime-bast, and smearing birch tar and resin over the 
strings and holes. 
It is an established fact that people of that time used birch tar. 
This is known partly on account of the repaired vessels, and partly 
from a single pot which contained a 1-millimeter-thick layer of birch 
tar on the inner side. It is possible that the many rolls of birch bark, 
which were found in the culture layer, indicate that birch tar was 
burnt at the place. 
The bone finds tell that, apart from fish, the people ate wild boar, 
beaver, and roe deer, and, less often, red deer. Accordingly, it must 
have been hunters who lived here. At the same time strawberries, 
raspberries, and hazel nuts were eaten to a great extent. However, 
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