Shaping Marble, Shaping MindsApprenticeship in an Early Neolithic Bracelet Quarry
- Francisco Martínez Sevilla
- Stephanie F. Piper
- Francisca Jiménez Cobos
- José Antonio Lozano Rodríguez
- Javier Luis Carrasco Rus
ISSN: 0197-7261
Año de publicación: 2020
Volumen: 45
Número: 1
Páginas: 1-18
Tipo: Artículo
Otras publicaciones en: Lithic technology
Resumen
Stone bracelets are one of the most outstanding aspects of personal ornamentation of the Early Neolithic in the south of the Iberian Peninsula (5500–4800 cal. BC). These ornaments are an element of cultural identity and a chronological marker of the first Neolithic societies in this area. Discovery and study of the Neolithic quarry of Cortijo Cevico (Loja, Granada) has allowed us to identify the extraction and initial reduction of dolomitic marble for the manufacture of bracelets. The archaeological assemblage from the quarry comprises knapping waste, circular roughouts (from which bracelets were manufactured), and the tools used in these activities. In this paper, we evaluate the evidence for apprenticeship processes in the quarry. We use different methodological resources to demonstrate that knowledge transmission occurred in the quarry including experimental knapping by experienced and novice knappers, ethnographic examples, and the application of diacritical schemes to the abandoned archaeological roughouts.