La Marmotta is a Neolithic settlement under the waters of Lake Bracciano north of Rome. It has produced a wonderful array of artifacts made of wood, fiber, and bone that give us an amazing look at the Italian Neolithic.
Lake Bracciano has been a key source of water for Rome since the time of Trajan, who ordered the construction of a (mostly underground) aqueduct carrying water to the city. That aqueduct was damaged during the Gothic Wars of the 500s, but it was repaired under Pope Paul V in 1612 and has been carrying water ever since. In the 20th century the old aqueduct was finally found to be no longer adequate and a new aqueduct was planned. But as soon as constructed started for the intake in the lake, in 1989, workers turned up potsherds and other artifacts. The intake had to be moved and the archaeological investigation began.
La Marmotta was a lake village, with dwellings standing on piles driven into the lake floor. A plan of the excavation as of 2000 is above, showing at least 13 structures; this is estimated to be about a quarter of the site. These dwellings were 8 to 10m long and approximately 6m wide (30 by 20 feet). They had interior partition walls and stone central hearths. The site dates to 5690-5250 BC.
Here's an old reconstruction of a Neolithic village in a Swiss lake, to convey the flavor. The residents of la Marmotta raised sheep, goats, cattle and pigs and hunted deer, as well as fishing. They farmed mainly wheat and beans and also ate plums, figs, and numerous sorts of berries. One of the most common plant remains was seeds of
Carthamus lanatus, distaff thistle, which can be pressed for oil, but which dropped out of cultivation when the more prolific safflower arrived in Europe in the Bronze Age.
But the glory of the excavation is the artifacts. There are a lot; the village seems to have been abandoned in a hurry, people leaving almost all of their belongings behind. I especially love the sickles, which are wooden (oak) with a cutting edge made of stone flakes.
It is a bit disappointing to find only small stone flakes, rather than spearpoints, but just finding flakes doesn't mean you didn't find tools. A great many tools were made this way. These sickles have been minutely studied by
Italian archaeologists, They are rather small, between 24 and 36 cm, with a cutting edge between 18 and 16 cm long. Microscopic study of the wear on the stone flakes suggests that they were used to cut grain, and probably near the base of the stalk rather than near the head. (That last from the angle of the wear on the edge.)
This is a handle type I have never seen before on a Stone Age tool.
Some clay pots, filled with modern grain to duplicate the badly decayed spelt that was found in them.
A great deal of attention have been paid to the
textiles and basketry. All of the fabrics above were made with plant fibers, including flax but probably other, unidentified species as well.
Basket, with the remains of what appears to be bread pressed into the bottom. The basket is made of two components, a fairly rigid woody plant around which thinner, more flexible fibers have been woven; neither plant has yet been identified.
A ton of evidence of weaving has been found, starting with the usual, loom weights.
A tool for working with threads on the loom. This exact type of tool was still used in modern Italy with the name
draghetto.
Plus a very not-unique find, a 7.5-cm tall soapstone carving known as the Venus of la Marmotta.
What a wonderful site, and what a joy to me to have discovered it today.
This is a handle type I have never seen before on a Stone Age tool.
ReplyDeleteIt's a handle type that immediately makes me question all of our assumptions of what these objects are and were used for. I know of no other sickles, from any time period, from any culture on the globe past or present, that feature handguards.
Handguards are, to the best of my knowledge, something you almost exclusively see on weapons. If there were merely for cutting stalks of grass or grain, what exactly do you suppose the hand was being guarded against? Why go to the extremely considerable trouble of adding handguards - especially ones that had to be made by cutting and carving a large hole into a single piece of wood - for a mere sickle? The extravagance of it is completely at odds with the simplicity and utility of a basic agricultural tool like a sickle.
That said, sickles have a long history of being used as makeshift weaponry. But in all the cases I am aware of, the sickles in question exist as (and alongside other) metal implements. In contrast, these seem purpose built with the expectation of combat.
However, that very fact could be explicable by their origin in a neolithic setting where other superior weapons perhaps did not yet exist. If a crude "stone-toothed" sickle is the best cutting implement your society has available, then it would suddenly make perfect sense to purpose build such items for combat and war, and to include a defensive feature like a handguard, to protect against strikes from your opponents' weaponry.
Sickles have certainly been used as makeshift weapons, but you would never make one as a weapon; they curve the wrong way for actual fighting. We also have plenty of Neolithic weapons and they are what you would expect" spears, daggers, bows and arrows.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering about what happens to the back of your hand when you swing it back through standing grain, or maybe brush you are cutting. Maybe this guy just got sick of having the backs of his hands scratched up? Gloves, you have to remember, were expensive and rare until fairly recent times.
I'm also drawn to the "right side" of the "blade" of these objects - the concave side, the one without teeth. There is some damage that seems too distinctly placed to be easily dismissed as damage that occurred in the ground.
ReplyDeleteLet's consider the possibility that these were not sickles, but rather "bladed clubs", of a sort with many other varieties found throughout the world. The blade being on the convex edge, it has to be used with a pulling motion, as with a sickle. But the concave side of the same shape is also perfectly usable for striking, in the manner of other kinds of curved wooden clubs found in other cultures and places (e.g., the Māori "wahaika").
The concave side of the specimen we have shows damage that appears consistent with such a usage.
Putting aside the broken tip and the gouge just beneath (as they could both easily be damage from being in the ground), there is a clear dent or notch in the lower part of the "blade", which would have had to be created by a strike with considerable force behind it; I would presume from parrying a blow. There also appear to be numerous smaller dents along the curvature toward the tip; I would presume from delivering strikes.
It also worth noting that the concave edge is tapered. Why would you bother to thin such an edge down to a "blade" shape if it's not intended to be used for striking? Why put in the extra time carving and smoothing a complex curved shape, if the only purpose of that concave edge is structural, intended simply to hold the teeth of the convex side?
Compare that with the concave edge of actual sickles. They don't thin down to a "blade" - they are actually the thickest part of the curve, acting as the "spine" of the blade, structurally supporting the thin and fragile cutting on the other side.
Why would someone go to the trouble of making a hand guard to protect against mere plant stalks, when other simpler, less robust forms of hand protection would have been available and performed that task just well (but not been suitable as protection in combat)?
ReplyDeleteWhy would an ordinary sickle have a complex hand guard of a design specifically suited to binding weapons, which would encumber the user while cutting brush or grain, rather than a simpler one suited simply to deflecting plant stalks and making work easier and quicker to perform?
Why would said sickle exhibit evidence of damage sustained in combat?
And why would the concave edge be thinned to a "blade", if not meant for striking? Why spend all the extra time and effort to shape it that way for no apparent benefit, when it could instead be flat and rough at no detriment to agricultural usage?
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I'm not saying this -isn't- a sickle or other agricultural tool. It would no doubt have excelled at such a role. What I am suggesting is that it wasn't -merely- a sickle, but was intentionally created with at least the possibility of combat taken into consideration.
This feels to me like a multi-purpose tool, combining the functionality of a sickle with that of a bladed club for self defense. (A weapon of war would almost certainly be larger, dedicated in function, etc.) I imagine this would be an everyday-carry kind of item, used ordinarily for cutting plants or even some light hammering, but perfectly serviceable as a club if the need to defend oneself arose suddenly.
I feel the cutting edge would not have been primarily used for combat, as it is not well placed for that, but it could certainly have been used to deliver a coup de grace after incapacitating an opponent with blows from the club side.
All in all, I would compare this somewhat to a billhook.