Gifts from the earth: symbolic dimensions of the use and production of Neolithic flint and stone axes

Whittle, Alasdair

doi:0066-5924

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Title: Gifts from the earth: symbolic dimensions of the use and production of Neolithic flint and stone axes

Abstract:

If the Neolithic is seen as the gradual intensification of a mixed farming economy by sedentary populations whose social structure became steadily more differentiated, the basic roles of flint and stone axes are unproblematic: functional tools and markers of status and prestige. But if there was a much longer and slower process of settling down, with a value system which mediated rivalry and encouraged participation, different roles emerge for axes. They may have symbolised both control over and unity with nature, and were made and acquired essentially for display and giving away rather than for permanent accumulation. Extraction too may have had important symbolic roles, encouraging participation, commemoration, and consciousness of nature

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