Meaningful materials? Bone artefacts and symbolism in the Early Bronze Age Aegean

The symbolically laden use of materials is well documented ethnographically but hard to demonstrate archaeologically, especially for animal bones and teeth, use of which in post-Neolithic contexts is commonly considered expedient. Early Bronze Age southern Aegean mortuary assemblages have yielded th...

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Main Author: Isaakidou, V
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2017
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author Isaakidou, V
author_facet Isaakidou, V
author_sort Isaakidou, V
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description The symbolically laden use of materials is well documented ethnographically but hard to demonstrate archaeologically, especially for animal bones and teeth, use of which in post-Neolithic contexts is commonly considered expedient. Early Bronze Age southern Aegean mortuary assemblages have yielded three distinctive classes of bone artefact. Comparison with contemporary unworked bone assemblages and contextually or formally related objects in other materials reveals complex cultural associations, the symbolic meaning of which is explored through heuristic use of ethnographic analogues. It is concluded that alternative value systems operated alongside those structured around exoticism and technological sophistication, usually deployed to understand EBA southern Aegean cultures.
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spelling oxford-uuid:6bd174b8-c2be-4738-94e9-7b3a3bfd37c22023-02-09T15:47:26ZMeaningful materials? Bone artefacts and symbolism in the Early Bronze Age AegeanJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:6bd174b8-c2be-4738-94e9-7b3a3bfd37c2EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordWiley2017Isaakidou, VThe symbolically laden use of materials is well documented ethnographically but hard to demonstrate archaeologically, especially for animal bones and teeth, use of which in post-Neolithic contexts is commonly considered expedient. Early Bronze Age southern Aegean mortuary assemblages have yielded three distinctive classes of bone artefact. Comparison with contemporary unworked bone assemblages and contextually or formally related objects in other materials reveals complex cultural associations, the symbolic meaning of which is explored through heuristic use of ethnographic analogues. It is concluded that alternative value systems operated alongside those structured around exoticism and technological sophistication, usually deployed to understand EBA southern Aegean cultures.
spellingShingle Isaakidou, V
Meaningful materials? Bone artefacts and symbolism in the Early Bronze Age Aegean
title Meaningful materials? Bone artefacts and symbolism in the Early Bronze Age Aegean
title_full Meaningful materials? Bone artefacts and symbolism in the Early Bronze Age Aegean
title_fullStr Meaningful materials? Bone artefacts and symbolism in the Early Bronze Age Aegean
title_full_unstemmed Meaningful materials? Bone artefacts and symbolism in the Early Bronze Age Aegean
title_short Meaningful materials? Bone artefacts and symbolism in the Early Bronze Age Aegean
title_sort meaningful materials bone artefacts and symbolism in the early bronze age aegean
work_keys_str_mv AT isaakidouv meaningfulmaterialsboneartefactsandsymbolismintheearlybronzeageaegean