EXOTICA IN NEOLITHIC SOCIETY: RECIPROCITY, REDISTRIBUTION, AND THE CIRCULATION OF OBSIDIAN
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-11-03

This paper interrogates the concept of “exotica” and its value in studying social interactions amongst agro-pastoral societies of the Neolithic. This issue is addressed by contextualizing data obtained through obsidian provenance studies in central Mediterranean prehistory, in turn allowing for the reconstruction of the movement of obsidian across the landscape and a discussion of the cultural circumstances that mediated its use. In contrast to the eastern Mediterranean where obsidian use dates back to the Upper Palaeolithic, it is not until the beginning of the Neolithic (ca. 6th – 4th millennia B.C.) that we see the widespread exploitation of raw materials from the central Mediterranean island sources of Lipari, Monte Arci (Sardinia), Pantelleria, and Palmarola. To date, these obsidians have been reported at over 500 Neolithic sites spanning a vast area that includes modern-day Italy, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Tunisia, Algeria, Malta, and Spain. By combining provenance data with information about the form and function of the objects themselves, this paper highlights how reciprocity and exchange facilitated the creation and maintenance of social relations across space and how the redistribution of obsidian by residents of a select number of gateway communities fostered the emergence of dynamic power relations in central Mediterranean Neolithic society.


Author(s): Freund, Kyle (Indian River State College)