One of the case studies is the fragmentation of the Spondylus shell rings from Varna and Durankulak cemeteries.

Archaeomalacology Revisited: Non-dietary use of molluscs in archaeological settings

edited by Canan Çakirlar

The past decade has witnessed a remarkable momentum in the advancement of archaeomalacological research but there is still a lot of room for progress. These ten papers are the second published proceedings of the archaeomalacology sessions organised by ICAZ (Mexico City, 2006). The contributions revisit important archaeological issues such as provenance of raw materials, dye production and the secondary uses of industrial shell waste, the role of shell artefacts in the symbolic world of diverse civilisations, technology and early cross-regional exchange networks. The papers testify to the merits of using state-of-the-art laboratory techniques to address archaeomalacological questions and demonstrate the interpretative value of integrating malacological expertise with experimental archaeology and detailed knowledge of archaeological context.

More info available from the publisher’s website

Bracciali in conchiglia del Neolitico italiano – Distribuzione, inquadramento culturale e tecnologia. In La Neolitizzazione tra Oriente e Occidente: Proceedings of the Conference (Udine, 23-24 Settembre 2005) (ed. A. Pessina & P. Visentini): 437-446. Udine: Comune.

Available at http://portale.comune.verona.it/media/_ComVR/Cdr/Mus_sto_nat/Allegati/023-036_Micheli.indd.pdf

Abstract:

One of the most characteristic personal ornaments of the European Neolithic is the ring bracelet made of stone or shell. In Italy, it was employed between the Early and Middle Neolithic, that is between the middle of the 6th millennium and the second half of the 5th millennium cal. BC. Its diffusion was very wide in the Northern Italian regions over several cultural groups, but it is attested, to a lower extent, also in the Southern territories and in the islands. The paper presents the shell bracelets found in the Middle Neolithic settlement of Cala Tramontana, in the San Domino Island (Tremiti Islands), by Francesco Zorzi in the 1950s and now kept in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale of Verona. It also considers some manufacturing remains of shell bracelets documenting a local production. Th ese data improve our knowledge of the techniques and skills employed in the manufacturing of personal ornaments during the Italian Neolithic.

Students examining the Dispilio Spondylus and Glycymeris ornament assemblage

Sandrine Bonnardin, 2009,  La parure funéraire des premières sociétés agro-pastorales des Bassins parisien et rhénan: Rubané, Hinkelstein et Villeneuve-Saint-Germain. Paris: Société Préhistorique Française [Mémoire de la Société préhistorique française, 49].

This volume derives from Sandrine Bonnardin’s doctoral thesis “La parure funéraire du néolithique ancien en Bassins parisien et rhénan: Matériaux, techniques, fonctions et usage social” (Paris, 2004). Sandrine’s book is valuable for anyone interested in the technology and function of prehistoric ornaments, while the application of traceological analysis to the Neolithic ornaments is perhaps this study’s most important contribution.

The book’s summary translated in English:

During nearly seven centuries, whereas the Early Neolithic period progresses from the Rhenish basin to the Paris basin, the first agro-pastoral communities (Rubané, Hinkelstein, Villeneuve-Saint-Germain) will deposit in the tombs of their deceased members objects of adornment, worked according to more or less complex methods and in raw materials sometimes of very distant provenance (such as Spondylus).

These objects compose a varied adornment corpus. These jewels reflect the tastes and values of the groups which carried them. How were these objects handled? Were they used before being deposited in the tombs or can one envisage that some were produced exclusively for burial purposes? How were they worn? What was their relation to the body? Which body decorations did they form? But also, for whom were these ornaments manufactured? Where there any age-related categories/restrictions related to the ornament use? Finally, how did this corpus evolved during the Early Neolithic?

Throughout a study of the raw materials, a typological, technological and traceological analysis of the almost totality of the jewelry corpora of the Paris and Rhenish Basin, this study proposes to examine for the first time the technical, functional and social aspects of this material. The correlation of the results with the contextual data (position of the objects in relation to the skeleton, associations of objects, etc) make it possible to reconstitute the funerary “dresses” of the first peasants of the extreme West of moderate Europe. The results also highlight the expansion of the bonds which linked the Paris and the Rhenish Basin communities, while the Rubané culture is shredded to leave the place to the new cultural groups that emerged, the Hinkelstein and the Villeneuve-Saint-Germain. In the beginning of the fourth century b.C. the cultural relations have changed, and the ornaments constitute the echo of these changes.

The papers that will be read:

• Izumi Shimada—Shell Artifact Manufacturing: Insight from a Late Horizon Shellworker’s Tool Kit
• Carol Mackey—Late Period Spondylus Usage: Examples from Chimu and Inka Tombs
• Anne Marie Hocquenghem—El Spondylus princeps en el Extremo Norte del Perú a Partir del Periodo Intermedio Tardío
• Eva Pajuelo and Paul Flores Escudero—Nuevos Apuntes Sobre los Talleres Malacologicos en Tumbes, Peru
• Theresa Topic and John Topic—Spondylus Use in the North Sierra of Peru
• Leon Doyon—Once in a Lifetime?: Spondylus Supply and Demand in the Regional Developmental Period Ecuadorian Highlands
• Alexander Martín and Benjamin Carter—Regional Craft Standardization Through Domestic Cottage Production: New Data From the Spondylus Industry of Coastal Ecuador
• Maria Masucci—Beyond Spondylus in Regional Developments: Shell working and Explanatory Models for the Regional Developmental Period, Coastal Ecuador
• Adrian Velazquez and Emiliano Melgar—Tapachtli and Mullu in Mesoamerica and the Andean Region

The Program of the Meeting is available here