Publication details
The Ba`ja Daggers Type, Technology and Commodification of a LPPNB Burial Object
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Tracking the Neolithic in the near East : lithic perspectives on its origins, development and dispersals : the proceedings of the 9th International Conference on the PPN Chipped and Ground Stone Industries of the Near East, Tokyo, 12th-16th november 2019 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Keywords | Ba`ja daggers; technology; commodification; status-providing object; sepulchral contexts |
| Description | The strictly symmetrical and bifacially flaked flint daggers from Ba`ja are introduced as a new LPPNB tool type, representing a most distinctive and elsewhere not yet attested artefact type. They allow for meaningful statements on off-regional procurement and technologies, demand networks, the de- and ex-commodification of burial objects (respectively subjects), ritual behaviour and symbolic properties, social differentiation, and more. The daggers’ highly specialised production most likely took place in the eastern (or western) steppes. Their well-preserved primary burial contexts testify also to intentional damaging of the daggers, most probably related to burial rites. The contextual and biographic analysis of the daggers provides basic and rather sound emic insights into Ba`ja’s LPPNB community, its commodification regimes and social structures |