The lithic assemblage of Cerje-Govrlevo: an overview on harvesting tools

[EN] Stone tools were a fundamental part of the Neolithic way-of-life and a broad variety of raw materials were used to produce a diversity of tools. Among them, flint is probably the most studied and diffused raw material during the whole Neolithic period. The analysis of flint tools helps archaeol...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Mazzucco, Niccolò, Gibaja, Juan Francisco
Tipo de recurso: otro
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/237078
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/237078
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Site of Cerje-Govrlevo
Stone tools
Harvesting tools
Neolithic
Farming communities
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] Stone tools were a fundamental part of the Neolithic way-of-life and a broad variety of raw materials were used to produce a diversity of tools. Among them, flint is probably the most studied and diffused raw material during the whole Neolithic period. The analysis of flint tools helps archaeologists to approach both cultural and economic aspects of the first farming communities, allowing insights into their cultural affiliation, their technical traditions, their procurement strategies, and into the productive activities carried out. The site of Cerje-Govrlevo, one of the most important sites of North Macedonia, is characterized by a varied, but numerically reduced flint assemblage: 164 specimens have been analysed. If compared to other Neolithic sites, this assemblage can be considered rather poor: even the smallest Neolithic villages usually preserve over a thousand flint remains. In the case of Cerje-Govrlevo it is possible that the number of remains is underrepresented because of the recovery strategy adopted during the excavation. The smallest remains, such debris and waste materials, have not been observed among the collection. Still, even excluding the smallest remains, the number of flakes and blades recovered is rather low for a Neolithic village. Despite that, a similar situation has been recently observed in other Macedonian sites, such as the tell site of Vrbjanska Čuka-Slavej in northern part of Pelagonia, thus it might be possible that Macedonian sites were characterized by a reduced exploitation of lithic resources. This issue should certainly be explored more in detail, in the future, by analysing newly excavated sites.