Distribution analysis
The occurrence over a wide area of Keile and the distribution pattern indicate that theft and scavenging at abandoned Rössen sites can be excluded as the major process behind the distribution of these artefacts. This leads to the conclusion that farmers must have exchanged their Keile with local groups around the agrarian settlements. We can think of ‘forest products’, raw materials, labour and women as valuable commodities in return. From these groups in close contact with the Rössen farmers the Keile found their way to their hinterland.
The spatial distribution and characteristics of the Keile in the Lower Rhine Basin have been opposed to the model of down-the-line-exchange. In that case there should be an absence of production debris, artefacts should decrease in number and size with distance from the source, the objects should be more fragmented and could have gained a different meaning (Appadurai 1986; Renfrew 1982; Verhart 2000, 2009). The distribution of Keile in the Lower Rhine Basin however, shows none of these aspects. The only trend to be observed is that the Keile outside the Rössen occupation area are a little smaller and more worn.
There is another aspect, which informs us about the background of acquisition. The Keile with secondary hour-glass shaped shaft hole, found outside the Rössen habitation area, in the territory of the hunter-gatherers, show that the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, who had acquired a Keil (or fragment), were not acquainted with the way the primary shaft holes had been made, or maintained their traditional practise of making shaft hole by pecking. This last option is plausible explanation for secondary hourglass-shaped shaft holes made by people living close to the Rössen habitation centres, as demonstrated by the Colmont specimen in southern Limburg (Brounen 1997). They could have had direct access to the farming communities living at a distance of 25 km and could have observed the Rössen technique of drilling with a hollow drill.
The majority of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were not in immediate direct contact with the producers of the Keile. These artefacts were distributed from hand to hand over the area occupied by them. Important information how Keile were made was not transferred by the Rössen communities or by groups living close in their neighbourhood.
It is not possible to determine whether the breakage of the artefacts had taken place originally in the Rössen area or at the location were the Keile were found. The new shaft holes were not made in the Rössen technique, with a hollow drill, but with the traditional Mesolithic pecking technique. This implies that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, who had a Keil in their possession, and were living more to the north, were unaware of how shaft holes had to be made.