Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T16:47:27.023Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Animate objects: a biography of prehistoric ‘axe-amulets’ in the central Mediterranean region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Robin Skeates
Robin Skeates
Affiliation:
School of World Art Studies & Museology, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TS
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper considers some of the relationships between people and things. It develops a broadly-based model of the later life-histories of prehistoric stone axes in the south-central Mediterranean region, taking account of their production, circulation, and consumption, and their cumulative transformation by physical and conceptual processes, of which the latter may have included personification, sacralisation, and animation. Attention is focused upon the value, meanings, and uses of axe-pendants, and intepretations are placed within a dynamic historical and political context of changing social practices and strategies in central and southern Italy, Sicily Malta, and Sardinia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 61 , 1995 , pp. 279 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Appadurai, A. 1986. Introduction: commodities and the politics of value. In Appadurai, A. (ed.), The social life of things. Commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: University Press, 3–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnheim, R. 1992. Art among the objects. In Arnheim, R., To the rescue of art: twenty-six essays. Oxford: University of California Press, 7–14.Google Scholar
Ashby, T., Bradley, R. N., Peet, T. E. & Tagliaferro, N. 1913. Excavations in 1908–11 in various megalithic buildings in Malta and Gozo. Papers of the British School at Rome 6.1, 1–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balmuth, M.S. 1992. Archaeology in Sardinia. American Journal of Archaeology 96, 663–97.Google Scholar
Barker, G. 1981. Landscape and society. Prehistoric central Italy. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bernabó Brea, L. & Cavalier, M. 1957. Stazioni preistoriche delle Isole Eolie. Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana n.s. 11, 97–151.Google Scholar
Best, E. 1912. The stone implements of the Maori. Wellington: Dominion Museum Bulletin 4.Google Scholar
Biancofiore, F. 1967. La necropoli eneolitica di Laterza. Origini e sviluppo dei gruppi ‘proto appenninici’ in Apulia. Origini 1, 195–300.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1962. Archaeology as anthropology. American Antiquity 31, 203–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonanno, A., Gouder, T., Malone, C. & Stoddart, S. 1990. Monuments in an island society: the Maltese context. World Archaeology 22, 190–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. 1990. Perforated stone axe-heads in the British Neolithic: their distribution and significance. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 9, 299–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. 1985. Consumption, change and the archaeological record. The archaeology of monuments and the archaeology of deliberate deposits. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Department of Archaeology Occasional Paper 13.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. & Edmonds, M. 1993. Interpreting the axe trade. Production and exchange in Neolithic Britain. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell Smith, W. 1963. Jade axes from the British Isles. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 29, 133–72.Google Scholar
Cavalier, M. 1979. Ricerche preistoriche nell'Arcipelago eoliano. Rivista di Scienze Preistoriche 34, 45–136.Google Scholar
Ceccanti, M. & Cocchi, D. 1978. La grotta dello Scoglietto (Grosseto). Studio dei materiali conservati al Museo Fiorentino di Preistoria. Rivista di Scienze Preistoriche 33, 187–214.Google Scholar
Champion, T., Gamble, C., Shennan, S. & Whittle, A. 1984. Prehistoric Europe. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Chapman, J. 1988. Ceramic production and social differentiation: the Dalmatian Neolithic and the western Mediterranean. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 1, 3–25.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. 1957. The dawn of European civilization. 6 edn. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Clark, G. 1965. Traffic in stone axe and adze blades. Economic History Review 2 ser. 18, 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, G. 1977. World prehistory in new perspective. 3 edn. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, G. 1986. Symbols of excellence. Precious materials as expressions of status. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Colini, G. A. 1903. Tombe eneolitiche del viterbese (Roma). Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana 29, 150–86.Google Scholar
Colini, G. A. 1904. La civiltá del bronzo in Italia. Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana 30, 229–304.Google Scholar
De Gregorio, A. 1917. Iconografia delle collezioni preistoriche della Sicilia, 33–4. Palermo: Annales de Gèologie et de Palèontologie.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1966. Purity and danger. An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Dumont, L. 1980. On value. Proceedings of the British Academy, London 66, 207–41.Google Scholar
Edmonds, M. & Thomas, J. 1987. The archers: an everyday story of country folk. In Brown, A. G. & Edmonds, M. R. (eds), Lithic analysis and later British prehistory, 187–99. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 162.Google Scholar
Ellen, R. 1988. Fetishism. Man 23, 213–35.Google Scholar
Evans, J.D. 1959. Malta. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Evans, J.D. 1971. The prehistoric antiquities of the Maltese islands: a survey. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Evett, D. 1973. A preliminary note on the typology, functional variability, and trade of Italian ground stone axes. Origini 7, 35–54.Google Scholar
Ferrarese Ceruti, M. L. 1981. La cultura del Vaso Campaniforme. Il primo bronzo. In Belli, C., Orlandini, P. & Pugliese Carratelli, G. (eds), Ichnussa. La Sardegna dalle origini all'età classica, LII–LXVI. Milano: Scheiwiller.Google Scholar
Firth, R. 1929. Primitive economics of the New Zealand Maori. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Firth, R. 1940. The analysis of mana: an empirical approach. Journal of the Polynesian Society 49, 483–510.Google Scholar
Firth, R. 1959. Ritual adzes in Tikopia. In Freeman, J. D. & Geddes, W. R. (eds), Anthropology in the South Seas. Essays presented to H. D. Skinner, 149–59. New Plymouth: Avery.Google Scholar
Franco, A. 1952. La tomba a forno di Cellino S. Marco (Br) nel quadro della civiltà sicula del Salento. In Graziosi, P., Micheli, A. & Pallottino, M. (eds), Atti del I° Congresso Internazionale di Preistoria e Protostoria Mediterranea. Firenze- Napoli-Roma 1950, 224–55. Firenze: Comitato Internazionale di Preistoria e Protostoria Mediterranea.Google Scholar
Geniola, A. & Ponzetti, F.M. 1987. Ricerche sul Neolitico delle Murge altamorane. Atti dell XXV Riunione Scientifica dell'lstituto ltaliano di Preistoria e Protostoria. Preistoria e protostoria delta Puglia centrale. Monopoli 16–19 ottobre 1984, 209–21. Monopoli: Istituto ltaliano di Preistoria e Protostoria.Google Scholar
Giorgini, R.S. 1915. Di una tomba eneolitica rinvenuta a Guardistalla presso Cecino. Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana 41, 40–5.Google Scholar
Guido, M. 1963. Sardinia. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Hawkes, C. F. 1954. Archaeological theory and method: some suggestions from the Old World. American Anthropologist 56, 155–68.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1979. Economic and social stress and material culture patterning. American Antiquity 44, 446–54.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1982a. Symbols in action: ethnoarcbaeological studies of material culture. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1982b. Toward a contextual approach to prehistoric exchange. In Ericson, J. E. & Earle, T. K. (eds), Contexts for prehistoric exchange, 199–211. London: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I. & Lane, P. 1982. A contextual examination of neolithic axe distribution in Britain. In Ericson, J. E. & Earle, T. K. (eds), Contexts for prehistoric exchange, 213–35. London: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodges, H. 1964. Artifacts. An introduction to early materials and technology. London: Baker.Google Scholar
Holloway, R. R. 1981. Italy and the Aegean 3000–700 B.C. Louvain-la-Neuve: Art and Archaeology Publications, Collegè Erasme, Archaeologia Transatlantica I.Google Scholar
Holloway, R. R. 1991. The archaeology of ancient Sicily. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hughes, I. 1977. New Guinea stone axe trade. The geography and ecology of traffic in the interior. Canberra: Department of Prehistory, Australia National University, Terra Australis 3.Google Scholar
Kopytoff, I. 1986. The cultural biography of things: commodities as process. In Appadurai, A. (ed.), The social life of things. Commodities in cultural perspective, 64–91. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Leighton, R. 1989. Ground-stone tools from Serra Orlando (Morgantina) and stone axe studies in Sicily and southern Italy. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 55, 135–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leighton, R. 1992. Stone axes and exchange in south Italian prehistory: new evidence from old collections. The Accordia Research Papers 3, 11–40.Google Scholar
Leighton, R. & Dixon, J. E. 1992a. Alcune considerazioni sulle asce levigate in Italia meridionale ed in Sicilia. In Herring, E., Whitehouse, R. & Wilkens, J. (eds), Papers of the Fourth Conference of Italian Archaeology. 3. New developments in Italian archaeology. Part 1, 19–28. London: Accordia Research Centre.Google Scholar
Leighton, R. & Dixon, J. E. 1992b. Jade and greenstone in the prehistory of Sicily and southern Italy. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 11, 179–200.Google Scholar
Lewthwaite, J.G. 1987. The Braudelian Beaker: a Chalcolithic conjuncture in western Mediterranean prehistory. In Waldren, W. H. & Kennard, R. C. (eds), Bell Beakers of the western Mediterranean. Definition, interpretation, theory, and new site data. The Oxford International Conference. 1986. Part i, 31–60. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports S331.Google Scholar
Lilliu, G. 1989. Relazione di apertura. In Dettori Campus, L. (ed.), La cultura di Ozieri — problematiche e nuove acquisizioni. Atti del I convegno di studi Ozieri, gennaio 1986 — aprile 1987, 15–18. Ozieri: Il Torchietto.Google Scholar
McBryde, I. 1978. Wil-im-ee Moor-ring: or, where do axes come from? Mankind 11, 354–82.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B. 1934. Stone implements of eastern New Guinea. In Evans Pritchard, E. E., Firth, R., Malinowski, B. & Schapera, I. (eds), Essays presented to C. G. Seligman, 189–96. Westport: Negro University Press.Google Scholar
Malone, C. 1985. Pots, prestige and ritual in neolithic southern Italy. In Malone, C. & Stoddart, S. (eds), Papers in Italian Archaeology IV. The Cambridge Conference. Part ii. Prehistory, 118–51. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, S244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malone, C. 1986. Exchange systems and style in the central Mediterranean. 4500–1700 B.C.. University of Cambridge: Unpublished PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Marx, K. 1887. Das Kapital.Google Scholar
Mauss, M. 1925. Essai sur le don: forme et raison de l'echange dans les sociétés archaiques. Sociologie et Anthropoligie.Google Scholar
Moravetti, A. 1989. La tomba ipogeica di Littoslongos — Ossi. In Dettori Campus, L. (ed.), La cultura di Ozieri — problematiche e nuove acquisizioni. Atti del I convegno di studi Ozieri, gennaio 1986 — aprile 1987, 83–102. Ozieri: Il Torchietto.Google Scholar
Nicolucci, G. 1879. Strumenti in pietra delle provincie calabresi. Atti della Reale Accademia delta Scienze Fisiche e Matematiche di Napoli 8.Google Scholar
O'Hare, G. B. 1990. A preliminary study of polished stone artefacts in prehistoric southern Italy. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 56, 123–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orsi, P. 1891. La necropoli sicula di Melilli (Siracusa). Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana 17, 53–76.Google Scholar
Orsi, P. 1892. La necropoli sicula di Castelluccio (Siracusa). Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana 18, 1–34.Google Scholar
Orsi, P. 1899. Sicilia. Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità 1899, 26–42.Google Scholar
Orsi, P. 1901. Frammenti siculi agrigentini. Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana 27, 259–64.Google Scholar
Orsi, P. 1902. Necropoli e stazioni sicule di transizione. Bullettino di Paletnoligia Italiana 28, 184–90.Google Scholar
Orsi, P. 1903. Necropoli e stazioni sicule di transizione. Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana 29, 23–8.Google Scholar
Patton, M. A. 1991. Axes, men and women: symbolic dimensions of neolithic exchange in Armorica (north-west France). In Garwood, P., Jennings, D., Skeates, R. & Toms, J. (eds), Sacred and profane. Proceedings of a conference on archaeology, ritual and religion. Oxford, 1989, 65–79. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology.Google Scholar
Phillips, P. 1979. Stone axes in ethnographic situations: some examples from New Guinea and the Soloman Isalnds. In Clough, T. H. McK. & Cummins, W. A. (eds), Stone axe studies, 108–12. London: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 23.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1972. The emergence of civilisation. The Cyclades and the Aegean in the third millennium B.C. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1973. Before civilisation. The radiocarbon revolution and prehistoric Europe. London: Cape.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1986. Varna and the emergence of wealth in prehistoric Europe. In Appadurai, A. (ed.), The social life of things. Commodities in cultural perspective, 141–68. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Ricq-de Bouard, M. 1980. Échanges et commerce des objets de pierre polie. Les Dossiers de l'Archéologie 44, 56–9.Google Scholar
Ricq-de Bouard, M. 1987. L'outillage de pierre polie des Alpes aux Pyrénées au Néolithique ancien: la naissance d'une industrie. In Guilaine, J., Courtin, J., Roudil, J.-L. & Vernet, J.-L. (eds), Premières communautés paysanne en Méditerranée occidentale. Actes du Colloque International du C.N.R.S. Montpellier 26–29 avril 1983, 305–17. Paris: C.N.R.S.Google Scholar
Ricq-de Bouard, M. 1993. Trade in neolithic jadeite axes from the Alps: new data. In Scarre, C. & Healy, F. (eds), Trade and exchange in prehistoric Europe. Proceedings a conference held at the University of Bristol, April 1992. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 61–7.Google Scholar
Ricq-de Bouard, M., Compagnoni, R., Desmons, J. & Fedele, F. 1990. Les roches alpines dans l'outillage poli néolithique de la France Méditerranéenne. Classification, origine, circulation. Gallia Préhistoire 32, 125–49.Google Scholar
Robb, J. 1993. Burial, society and economy in neolithic Italy. Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Ross, H. M. 1970. Stone adzes from Malaita, Soloman Islands: an ethnographic contribution to Melanesian archaeology. Journal of the Polynesian Society 79, 411–20.Google Scholar
Rowlands, M. J. 1980. Kinship, alliance and exchange in the European Bronze Age. In Barrett, J. & Bradley, R. (eds), Settlement and society in the British later Bronze Age, 15–55. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 83.Google Scholar
Rowlands, M. 1993. The role of memory in the transmission of culture. World Archaeology 25, 141–51.Google Scholar
Russell, B. 1984. A history of Western philosophy. 3 edn. London: Unwin.Google Scholar
Shanks, M. & Tilley, C. 1987. Social theory and archaeology. Oxford: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Shennan, S. J. 1982. Ideology, change and the European early bronze age. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbolic and structural archaeology, 155–61. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. 1984. Social evolution: Europe in the later Neolithic and Copper Age. In Bintliff, J. (ed.), European social evolution. Archaeological perspectives, 123–34. West Chiltington: Chanctonbury Press.Google Scholar
Skeates, R. 1992. The Neolithic and Copper Age in the Abruzzo-Marche region, central Italy. University of Oxford, unpublished D.Phil thesis.Google Scholar
Skeates, R. 1993. Neolithic exchange in central and southern Italy. In Scarre, C. & Healy, F. (eds), Trade and exchange in prehistoric Europe. Proceedings of a conference held the University of Bristol, April 1992, 109–14. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Skeates, R. in press a. The human use of caves in east-central Italy during the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Copper Age. In Bonsall, C. & Smith, C. (eds), The human use of caves. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bishop.Google Scholar
Skeates, R. in press b. Transformations in mortuary practice and meaning during the Neolithic and Copper Age in lowland east-central Italy. In Waldren, W. (ed.), Third Deia Conference of Prehistory. Ritual, rites and religion. Oxford: Tempus Reparatum.Google Scholar
Stoddart, S., Bonanno, A., Gouder, T., Malone, C. & Trump, D. 1993. Cult in an island society: prehistoric Malta in the Tarxien period. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3, 3–19.Google Scholar
Strathern, M. 1965. Axe types and quarries. A note on the classification of stone axe blades from the Hagen area, New Guinea. The Journal of the Polynesian Society 74, 182–91.Google Scholar
Strathern, M. 1969. Stone axes and flake tools: evaluations from two New Guinea Highland societies. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 35, 311–29.Google Scholar
Strathern, M. 1984. Subject or object? Women and the ciculation of valuables in Highlands New Guinea. In Hirschon, R. (ed.), Women and property — women as property, 158–75. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Tambiah, S.J. 1984. The Buddhist saints of the forest and the cult of amulets. A study in charisma, hagiography, sectarianism, and millennial Buddhism. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Taramelli, A. 1904. Scavi nella necropoli preistorica a grotte artificciali di ‘Anghelu Ruju’. Notizie degli Scavi di Antichita 1904, 301–51.Google Scholar
Tinè, S. 1965. Gli scavi nella Grotta della Chiusazza. Bullettino di Paletnologia Haliana 16, 123–286.Google Scholar
Tinè, S. 1983. Oggetti d'ornamento. In Tinè, S. (ed.), Passo di Corvo e la civiltà neolitica del Tavoliere, 100. Genova: Sagep.Google Scholar
Tinè, S. & Isetti, E. 1975–1980. Culto neolitico dele acque e recenti scavi nella Grotta Scaloria. Bullettino di Paletnoligia Haliana 82, 31–70.Google Scholar
Trump, D. 1961. The later prehistory of Malta. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 27, 253–62.Google Scholar
Trump, D. H. 1966. Central and southern Italy before Rome. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Tusa, S. 1983. La Sicilia nella preistoria. Palermo: Sellerio.Google Scholar
Tylor, E. B. 1871. Primitive culture. London: Murray.Google Scholar
Ugolini, L. M. 1934. Malta. Origini della civiltà Mediterranea. Valetta: Libreria dello Stato.Google Scholar
Vial, L. G. 1940–1941. Stone axes of Mount Hagen, New Guinea. Oceania 11, 158–63.Google Scholar
Wallis Budge, E. A. 1930. Amulets and superstitions. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weiner, A. B. 1980. Reproduction: a replacement for reciprocity. American Ethnologist 7, 71–85.Google Scholar
Weiner, A. B. 1985. Inalienable wealth. American Ethnologist 12, 210–27.Google Scholar
West, E.H. 1963. Jade: its character and occurence. Expedition 5, 2–11.Google Scholar
White, J. P. & Modjeska, N. 1978a. Acquirers, users, finders, losers: the use axe blades make of the Duna. Mankind 11, 276–87.Google Scholar
White, J. P. & Modjeska, N. 1978b. Where do all the stone tools go? Some examples and problems in their social and spatial distribution in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. In Hodder, I. (ed.), The spatial organisation of culture, 25–38. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, R. D. 1968. Settlement and economy in southern Italy in the Neothermal period. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 34, 332–66.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, R. 1972. The rock-cut tombs of the central Mediterranean. Antiquity 46, 275–81.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, R. 1981. Megaliths of the central Mediterranean. In Evans, J. D., Cunliffe, B. & Renfrew, C. (eds), Antiquity and man. Essays in honour of Glyn Daniel, 106–27. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, R. D. 1984. Social organisation in the Neolithic of southeast Italy. In Waldren, W.H., Chapman, R., Lewthwaite, J. & Kennard, R-C. (eds), The Deya Conference of Prehistory. Early settlement in the Western Med terranean islands and the peripheral areas, 1109–33. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports S229.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, R. D. 1992. Underground religion. Cult and culture in prehistoric Italy. London: Accordia Research Centre.Google Scholar
Zammit, T. 1910. The Hal-Saflieni prehistoric hypogeum at Casal Paula, Malta. First report. Valetta: Empire Press.Google Scholar
Zammit, T. 1916. The Hal-Tarxien neolithic temple, Malta. Archaeologia 67, 127–44.Google Scholar
Zammit, T. 1920. Third report on the Hal-Tarxien excavations, Malta. Archaeologia 70, 179–200.Google Scholar
Zammit, T. 1930. Prehistoric Malta. The Tarxien temples. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zammit, T., Peet, T. E. & Bradley, R. N. 1912. The small objects and the human skulls found in the Hal-Saflieni prehistoric hypogeum at Casal Paula, Malta. Second report. Malta.Google Scholar