Material Principles and Economic Relations Underlying Neolithic Axe Circulation in Western Europe
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Material Principles and Economic Relations Underlying Neolithic Axe Circulation in Western Europe Selina Delgado-Raack 1 & Roberto Risch 1 & Francisco Martínez-Fernández 2 & Martí Rosas-Casals 3,4
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Neolithic societies produced and circulated axeheads made out of different rock types over substantial distances. These tools were indispensable to their economic reproduction, but they also demanded considerable manufacturing efforts. The material properties of the raw materials chosen to produce axeheads had a direct effect on the grinding and polishing processes, as well as on the use life of these tools. However, surprisingly little is known about the criteria followed by these societies when it came to choosing adequate raw materials, or why certain rocks were exploited in greater volumes and circulated over larger distances than others. In order to determine the material parameters ruling axe production, circulation, and use, a range of different rock types was submitted to mechanical tests. For the first time, comparative values relating to the resistance to friction and to breakage are presented for some of the most important rock types used for the manufacture of axeheads by the Neolithic communities of Western Europe. These mechanical parameters allow us to approach hypothetical production and use values, which are then correlated with the distances travelled and the volumes of rock in circulation. This combination of petrographic, mechanical, and paleoeconomic information leads to new understandings of the principles ruling Neolithic supply and distribution networks and the economic rationale behind them. It reveals how deeply the economic and symbolic meanings of these outstanding Neolithic artefacts were rooted in their production and use values. Keywords Neolithic exchange . Value theory . Stone axes . Mechanical properties .
Petrographic characterisation . Material sciences
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-01909425-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Roberto Risch [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Delgado-Raack et al.
To Vin Davis. In Memoriam
Introduction It is commonly accepted that stone axes, adzes, chisels, wedges and similar edge-ground artefactswereessentialtothetechnologicalrevolution oftheNeolithic,defined as theageofthe “polished stones”. In most regions, these tools would have been indispensable to clear whatevervegetationgrewonthelandrequiredforcultivation.Apartfrom fellinganduprooting of trees and bushes, axes and adzes were also used for woodworking in general, for the preparation of fibres, crushing of vegetables, quartering of animals, etc. (Dickson 1981; Godelier and Garanger 1973; McCarthy 1976; Mills 1993; Pétrequin and Pétrequin 1993; Steensberg 1980). Their use as combat weapons since the early Neolithic should not be underestimated, at
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