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Saturday, December 31st, 2011

Oldest Obsidian Bracelet Reveals Amazing Craftsmen’s Skills in the Eighth Millennium BC

Author:    
Source:     Physorg.com
Publication Date:     21-Dec-11
 Link: Oldest Obsidian Bracelet Reveals Amazing Craftsmen’s Skills in the Eighth Millennium BC
Stephan:   Almost everything you learned in school about early humans is wrong, as long time SR readers have discovered. The whole idea of early humans being these primitive crude people -- remember a movie called The Search for Fire -- is just a projection of writers and researchers captured by their own biases. I am fascinated by these studies which show how truly sophisticated they were. More information: Astruc L., et al., Multi-scale tribological analysis of the technique of manufacture of an obsidian bracelet from Aşıklı Höyük (Aceramic Neolithic, Central Anatolia), Journal of Archaeological Science 38 (2011): 3415-3424.

Researchers from the Institut Français d’Etudes Anatoliennes in Istanbul and the Laboratoire de Tribologie et de Dynamiques des Systèmes have analyzed the oldest obsidian bracelet ever identified, discovered in the 1990s at the site of Aşıklı Höyük, Turkey. Using high-tech methods developed by LTDS to study the bracelet’s surface and its micro-topographic features, the researchers have revealed the astounding technical expertise of craftsmen in the eighth millennium BC. Their skills were highly sophisticated for this period in late prehistory, and on a par with today’s polishing techniques. This work is published in the December 2011 issue of Journal of Archaeological Science, and sheds new light on Neolithic societies, which remain highly mysterious.

Dated to 7500 BC, the obsidian bracelet studied by the researchers is unique. It is the earliest evidence of obsidian working, which only reached its peak in the seventh and sixth millennia BC with the production of all kinds of ornamental objects, including mirrors and vessels. It has a complex shape and a remarkable central annular ridge, and is 10 cm in diameter and 3.3 cm wide. Discovered in 1995 at the exceptional site of Asıklı Höyük in Turkey and displayed ever since at the Aksaray Archeological Museum, the […]

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