Stone tool technology Research Papers (original) (raw)

The choice of Alpine jades Up to the present, superlatives have always been used to describe Neolithic axeheads made of jade: the toughest rock, the finest-grained, the most luminous green colour that catches the light of the sun, the... more

The choice of Alpine jades

Up to the present, superlatives have always been used to describe Neolithic axeheads made of jade: the toughest rock, the finest-grained, the most luminous green colour that catches the light of the sun, the extraordinary polish, the longest blades, etc. It is assumed that all these characteristics, deemed to be indissociable, are what explain the success of these polished axeheads in Europe over three millennia. Behind these enthusiastic descriptions lie a number of criteria that are currently used by gemmologists to determine the market value of jades used for jewellery and for art objects.

The modern definition of jade that the gemmologists use – which covers only jade-jadeite and jade-nephrite – is different from, and much more restrictive than the archaeological (and Neolithic?) definition of ‘Alpine jades’, which encompasses jadeitites, omphacitites, eclogites and some amphibolites, while nephrites are excluded. We should therefore define each one of the qualities of Alpine jades individually, in seeking to rank them in order to understand their relative value during the Neolithic and their respective influence on the long-distance circulation of polished axeheads.

This chapter starts by considering the ways in which jades would have been recognised at or near the sources of the raw material, then goes on to discuss their variability in texture and colour, the investment of time in creating axeheads of different lengths and in using different manufacturing techniques, and finally the different levels of polish.

What emerges from this review is that the essential characteristics that would have conditioned the choice of Alpine jades when producing socially-valorised polished axeheads were the toughness and fineness of grain, which would have given the cutting edge a resistance that was incomparably higher than that achieved by other types of rock in the region.

As for the structure, the colour, the length and the degree of polish of the axeheads, these appear to be ‘secondary levels of the fact’ (to use André Leroi-Gourhan’s phrase), which could be modified and reinterpreted according to the ideological conceptions of the societies around which they circulated. However, the preference accorded to certain jadeitites in the Paris Basin, Brittany, Germany and Great Britain allow us to suggest that the producers and consumers of these axeheads shared in common the use of reproducible (and thus scientific) criteria to identify jade-jadeitites, which allowed them to select the most beautiful jades, not only at the source areas but also from among the range of Alpine axeheads as they travelled around.
The conclusion of this study is therefore nuanced, pointing out that while all the users of Alpine jade axeheads were united in using the same raw materials and physical properties, their social interpretation of these artefacts varied along the three main axes of circulation – towards north-west Europe, towards southern Italy and towards the Balkans.
excluded. We should therefore define each one of the qualities of Alpine jades individually, in seeking to rank them in order to understand their relative value during the Neolithic and their respective influence on the long-distance circulation of polished axeheads.

This chapter starts by considering the ways in which jades would have been recognised at or near the sources of the raw material, then goes on to discuss their variability in texture and colour, the investment of time in creating axeheads of different lengths and in using different manufacturing techniques, and finally the different levels of polish.

What emerges from this review is that the essential characteristics that would have conditioned the choice of Alpine jades when producing socially-valorised polished axeheads were the toughness and fineness of grain, which would have given the cutting edge a resistance that was incomparably higher than that achieved by other types of rock in the region.

As for the structure, the colour, the length and the degree of polish of the axeheads, these appear to be ‘secondary levels of the fact’ (to use André Leroi-Gourhan’s phrase), which could be modified and reinterpreted according to the ideological conceptions of the societies around which they circulated. However, the preference accorded to certain jadeitites in the Paris Basin, Brittany, Germany and Great Britain allow us to suggest that the producers and consumers of these axeheads shared in common the use of reproducible (and thus scientific) criteria to identify jade-jadeitites, which allowed them to select the most beautiful jades, not only at the source areas but also from among the range of Alpine axeheads as they travelled around.

The conclusion of this study is therefore nuanced, pointing out that while all the users of Alpine jade axeheads were united in using the same raw materials and physical properties, their social interpretation of these artefacts varied along the three main axes of circulation – towards north-west Europe, towards southern Italy and towards the Balkans.