For decades, the geoarchaeologist Alexander Binsteiner has been supervising excavations in Arnhofen, a small town near Regensburg. In a mine people mined flint there 7000 years ago and processed it into particularly high-quality stone blades. Today the 66-year-old is convinced that these blades were the oldest currency system in the world. In a way, the Euro of the Stone Age.
Mr. Binsteiner, you suspect that the world’s first monetary system came into being 7,000 years ago in Bavaria near Regensburg. What was the money?
Alexander Binsteiner: It consisted of stone blades made from what is known as banded plate chert, one of the finest flint materials we know of anywhere in the world. Due to a whim of nature, it only occurs in one place in Bavaria’s Jura rock: in Arnhofen near Regensburg.
What distinguishes the material?
The plate chert is between 140 and 160 million years old and, like agate, amethyst and opal, belongs to the so-called quartz-opal group. Above all, the material is easy to work with and delivers extremely sharp blades.
How was the dismantling done?
To get to the chert, the miners first had to dig through a layer of sand and gravel. This resulted in shafts that were up to eight meters deep and arranged in long rows.
That doesn’t sound harmless, after all there was 5000 BC. BC yes no mining engineers.
Yes, nevertheless, among all the shafts that we excavated, we did not find a single one that had collapsed. Apparently the workers went to work very cautiously. With the excavation of one shaft they filled the previous one. In this way they were able to prevent the not particularly stable pits from collapsing. The whole thing was very well organized.
How many shafts are we talking about?
Since investigations began in 1980, around 500 shafts have been archaeologically excavated. Extrapolated to the entire mine area, it was around 20,000. It was a mega mine.
What were the blades used for?
As a knife for cutting and also as a sickle for harvesting grain. But also as a means of payment.
Why do you think that?
The stone blades were of very high quality and were spread over 500 kilometers in Central Europe. Archaeologists found it in western and eastern Germany, in northern Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. New sites are constantly being added, most recently near Krems in Lower Austria. Overall, the sites are spread over an area of ??over half a million square kilometers. These are enormous numbers for the middle phase of the Neolithic period, i.e. the period from 4900 to 4400 BC. No other stone material was so widely used at that time. If the blades had only been used as tools, no one would have carried them that far. People in northern and eastern Germany had enough flint of their own. They would not have had to import stone blades from Bavaria there.
When did you get the brilliant idea of ??stone money?
A colleague of mine excavated a settlement in Prague from around 4600 BC. from. In the middle of the discovery site, eleven unused stone blades from Arnhofener Hornstein lay so close together as if they had come from a bag or a till.
Couldn’t they have also been objects of prestige?
No, such blades were certainly not used for that. They are also unsuitable as jewelry, for which stone beads and perforated mussel shells were used at the time.
So how did stone become money?
The Blades must have passed from hand to hand, from settlement to settlement, along the ancient trade routes. At first they were probably an object of exchange and then, in a further step, became a kind of currency. The trader then did not have to carry heavy objects with him to trade, but instead had the light blades with him.
Which criteria does a currency have to meet from an economic point of view?
That’s quite a number. For example, the currency must be counterfeit-proof. The Arnhofen blades fulfill this perfectly. Their banding is so characteristic that it cannot be imitated. Any layperson can easily recognize them. On the other hand, enough raw material must be available. It makes no sense to only make a hundred blades and then run out of raw materials. But with the big mine there was enough “money” available.
How many blades are we talking about?
About 100 blades could be made from a slab of chert. Overall, it was extrapolated between 20 million and 40 million pieces. Arnhofen was then what Solingen is today: the most famous knife town.
That required some kind of factory.
Exactly. The central production facility in Regensburg was recently examined. A rare stroke of luck. The blades were made in a certain way there; So there was a kind of patent that mass-produced blades of the same quality. In order to get to the particularly valuable middle blades, however, a lot of raw material had to be cut off. In the end, one kilogram of blades was left over from 20 kilograms of raw material. That made her even more valuable. This production center thus fulfilled another criterion for a currency: reproducibility.
What else do you need for a payment system?
The currency has to be accepted by other market participants, otherwise I wouldn’t give up my expensive fur for it, and you have to agree on the value of the blades. Only then will there be a corresponding demand for the money. And last but not least, it needs good distribution channels, which means a kind of export system. At that time, these were the waterways such as the Danube and Rhine, the highways of the Stone Age.
Doesn’t money also attract counterfeiters?
Some distance from Arnhofen there were smaller neighboring mines, for example in Flintsbach near Deggendorf. So-called hornstone was mined there, a material of poorer quality than plate hornstone. However, the Flintsbacher blades only spread locally and were used exclusively as tools. They didn’t work as currency.
Who benefited from the mine and blade factory?
At that time, people all lived together in settlement communities consisting of 30 to 40 meter long buildings. Apparently there were no particularly large buildings that would have represented a particular wealth of individuals. But overall there was a particularly high population density between Regensburg and down the Danube to the Gäuboden around Straubing. Wealth was expressed in the fact that people could buy food all year round with their money. This meant fewer famines and dependence on what they could produce on their own fields. Infant mortality was lower than in other regions and the population grew. Unfortunately, other organic valuables such as furs or valuable leather have not survived.
How long was the Stone Age euro valid?
Just over a period of about 200 years, from 4600 to 4400 BC. After that, the monetary system collapses again and the material disappears more or less completely.
Why?
Apparently, the mine in Arnhofen was so heavily exploited that there were no more supplies. The entire currency and trading system collapsed with it, I call it the Arnhofen catastrophe.
Were there similar payment systems at that time?
There was nothing comparable before or after. Other currencies, such as copper bars, only became established much later in the Bronze Age from around 2000 BC. Chr.
Helmut Broeg spoke with Alexander Binsteiner, the interview first appeared in “Stern”.
(This article was first published on Sunday, August 28, 2022.)
