Gebel 2013, Commodification of Neolithic Stone

Stone Tools in Transition:From Hunter-Gatherers

to Farming Societies in the Near East

7th Conference on PPN Chippedand Ground Stone Industries

of the Fertile Crescent

Ferran Borrell; Juan José Ibáñez; Miquel Molist (editors)

Dades catalogràfiques recomanades pel Servei de Biblioteques de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Stone Tools in Transition: From Hunter-Gatherers to Farming Societies in the Near East / Ferran Borrell, Juan José Ibáñez, Miquel Molist (eds.) — Bellaterra (Barcelona) : Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Servei de Publicacions, 2013.

ISBN 9788449038181

I. Borrell, Ferran ed.II. Ibáñez, Juan José ed.III. Molist, Miquel ed.

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Organitzat per:Universitat Autònoma de BarcelonaInstitució Milà i Fontanals (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas)

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Fotografia de la coberta:© Central photograph: SAPPO Research Group. Others (clockwise from top left): EFAP Archive, TISARP team-University of Tübingen, Jesús González Urquijo, Netta Mitki, Ferran Borrell, Semra Balcı, Stuart Campbell, Trustees of the British Museum and Hamoudi Khalaily.

ISBN 978-84-490-3818-1Dipòsit legal: B. 15.831-2013

Imprès a Espanya. Printed in Spain

F. Borrell, J.J. Ibáñez, M. Molist (eds.) 7

Summary

Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Tribute to Marie Claire Cauvin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Brief introduction to the 7th Conference on PPN chipped and ground stone industries of the Fertile Crescent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Ferran Borrell, Juan José Ibáñez and Miquel Molist

Assessing typo-technological variability in Epipalaeolithic assemblages: Preliminary results from two case studies from the Southern Levant . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Lisa A. Maher and Danielle A. Macdonald

Wadi al-Hajana 1: A Khiamian outpost in the northwestern piedmont of Mt . Bishri, central Syria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Sumio Fujii and Takuro Adachi

The bidirectional blade industries of the southern Levant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Omry Barzilai

Nahal Hava: a PPNB campsite and Epipalaeolithic occupation in the central Negev highlands, Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Michal Birkenfeld and A. Nigel Goring-Morris

Large-scale larnite quarries and production sites for bifacial tools in the southern Judean desert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Jacob Vardi

Qumran Cave 24, a Neolithic-Chalcolithic site by the Dead Sea: a short report and some information on lithics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Avi Gopher, Cristina Lemorini, Elisabetta Boaretto, Israel Carmi, Ran Barkai and Heeli. C. Schechter

Observations on the chaîne opératoire of bidirectional blade production at Nahal Lavan 1021 based on refitting studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Netta Mitki, Omry Barzilai and A. Nigel Goring-Morris

Summary8

Household-level flaked-stone tool production at the Neolithic site of ‘Ain Ghazal, Jordan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Theresa M. Barket

Early Neolithic flint raw material selection at LPPNB Ba’ja / southern Levant . Preliminary results from two room fills of area B-North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Christoph Purschwitz

A functional investigation of perforators from the Late Natufian/Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site of Huzuk Musa – a preliminary report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Iris Groman-Yaroslavski, Danny Rosenberg and Dani Nadel

Microdrill use at Khiamian sites in central and northern Levant (Syria and Lebanon) . . . 177Jesús González-Urquijo, Frederic Abbès, Hala Alarashi, Juan José Ibáñez and Talía Lazuén

The Neolithic commodification of stone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191Hans Georg K. Gebel

The Neolithic of Lebanon: a statement of current knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207Maya Haïdar-Boustani

Caching and depositing in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of Yiftahel, Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . 219Hamoudi Khalaily, Ianir Milevski and Omry Barzilai

The significance of long blade caches and deposits at Late Neolithic Shir, Syria . . . . . . . 231Dörte Rokitta-Krumnow

Opening Pandora’s Box: Some reflections on the spatial and temporal distribution of the off-set bi-directional blade production strategy and the Neolithisation of the Northern Levant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Ferran Borrell

Exchange of points in the PPNB: points with the Palmyran retouch from Tell Ain el-Kerkh, northwest Syria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Makoto Arimura

Naviform technology at Göllüdağ, Central Anatolia: some remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277Semra Balci

The lithic assemblages of Gusir Höyük (Turkey): the preliminary results . . . . . . . . . . . . 289Çiler Altinbilek-Algül

The early cypriot Pre-Pottery Neolithic: new evidence from the Amathus area . . . . . . . . 299François Briois, Jean-Denis Vigne and Jean Guilaine

Chipped stone artifacts from the aceramic Neolithic site of Chogha Golan, Ilam Province, western Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Mohsen Zeidi and Nicholas J. Conard

F. Borrell, J.J. Ibáñez, M. Molist (eds.) 9

Chipped stone industry from the excavation at the PPN settlement of Tell-e Atashi, SE Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Mozhgan Jayez and Omran Garazhian

Study of the chipped stone assemblage from systematic surface sampling at the PPN settlement of Tell-e Atashi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Maryam Shakooie and Omran Garazhian

A reappraisal of the Pottery Neolithic flaked stone assemblages at Tall-i Jari B, Fars, Southwest Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Yoshihiro Nishiaki

The ground stone tools from the aceramic Neolithic site of Chogha Golan, Ilam province, western Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Nicholas J. Conard and Mohsen Zeidi

Keeping the razor sharp: hafting and maintenance of sickles in the southern Levant during the 6th and 5th millennia bc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

Jacob Vardi and Isaac Gilead

The PPNA quarry of Kaizer Hill, Modi‘in, Israel – The waste piles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395Gadi Herzlinger, Leore Grosman and Naama Goren-Inbar

Incised slabs from Hayonim cave: a methodological case study for reading Natufian art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

Dana Shaham and Anna Belfer-Cohen

Grooved stones and other macrolithic objects with incised decoration from the PPNB at Tell Halula (Syria, Middle Euphrates Valley) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Miquel Molist, Maria Bofill, Anabel Ortiz and Bushra Taha

Grooved stones in the Southern Levant: typology, function and chronology . . . . . . . . . . 435Ariel Vered

Natufian bedrock mortars at Qarassa 3: Preliminary results from an interdisciplinary methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

Xavier Terradas, Juan José Ibáñez, Frank Braemer, Karen Hardy, Eneko Iriarte, Marco Madella, David Ortega, Anita Radini and Luis C. Teira

Göllü Dağ Obsidian Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465Nur Balkan-Atli, Nurcan Kayacan, Semra Balci, Laurence Astruc and Korhan Erturaç

Results of geochemical analyses of obsidian artefacts from the Neolithic site of Tell Labwe South, Lebanon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Lamya Khalidi, Bernard Gratuze, Maya Haidar-Boustani, Juan José Ibáñez and Luís Teira

The consumption of obsidian at Neolithic Çatalhöyük: a long-term perspective . . . . . . . 495Tristan Carter and Marina Milic

Summary10

The obsidian assemblage from Neolithic Hagoshrim, Israel: pressure technology and cultural influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509

Heeli C. Schechter, Ofer Marder, Ran Barkai, Nimrod Getzov and Avi Gopher

The obsidian at Arpachiyah, Iraq; an integrated study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529Stuart Campbell and Elizabeth Healey

Stone Tools in Transition: From Hunter-Gatherers to Farming Societies in the Near East. F. Borrell, J.J. Ibáñez, M. Molist (eds.) 191

Abstract

This contribution advocates a novel and holistic understanding of Neolithic worked stone, compre-hending them beyond typology, metrics, statistics, and conventional socio-economic interpretation as commodities and subjects of productive and interrelated commodification regimes (sensu Gebel 2010a). Stone products created and supported tangible and intangible Neolithic value systems, and value systems promoted the manufacture, use and recycling of stone products for many tangible and intangible spheres. Near Eastern Neolithic chipped and ground stone research has reached such ad-vanced statuses that a comprehensive and systemic approach has become imperative. The forcefulness of the commodification approach not only makes stone products what they are: parts and agents of in-teraction between Neolithic environments, subsistence, technologies, product spheres, exchange systems, and all sorts of cognitive spheres; it also includes and respects the biographical contexts stone products passed through, and “gives them back the social life” they had as part of the new human Neolithic ethos.

Keywords: neolithic commodification, worked stone subsistence, social life of stone products, lithic commodities .

1. Introduction: The demands of a holistic approach to Neolithic stone

The pace and quality of studies on near Eastern neolithic chipped and ground stone industries testify an immense progress in the last two-three decades, and an increasing number of works show research tendencies for interpreting lithic industries beyond their material data (Gebel 2011), e .g . their social meaning in terms of labour organization, topics like lithic symbolism or lithic identity, and other . While this research development poses the right and needed historic questions, it has to be questioned if it really goes in the right direction and helps the needed ho-listic perspective on the roles of stone working and use in the various tangible and intangible sectors of neolithic life . It is the advanced status of current lithic studies which demands the re-

The Neolithic commodification of stone

Hans Georg K. Gebel

Free University of Berlin. [email protected]

The Neolithic commodification of stone192

flection whether stone analysis can directly try to “explain” the neolithic, or if this can only be reached by understanding the various stone sectors being embedded in the various (biographies of) contexts and neolithic systems .

This contribution1 offers the holistic commodification2 concept as a most suitable and pow-erful approach to evaluate all contexts of stone products, including difficult subjects such as lithic identities, lithic behaviour or ethology, lithic cognition, lithic “schools” or styles, lithic symbolism and the like . As a consequence of this holistic approach, several major demands to future lithic studies do occur:

1) Chipped and ground stone working, as well as other mineral working, cannot be separately considered and analysed, especially when it comes to procurement studies, respectively when the environmental knowledge of abiotic resources is discussed .

2) Lithic behaviour studies, or the ethology of lithic working, is essential to characterize pro-ductive stone milieus .

3) All worked stone technologies have to be linked to/embedded in the reconstructed envi-ronmental, technological, social, exchange and cognitive systems of a site .

4) Stone artefacts, or their assemblages, have to become the subject of biographical analysis (the contexts through which they were channelled during their “social life”) .

5) If applicable, a site’s lithic findings have to be related to regional lithic economic systems, respectively their potentials .

When linked with a systemic approach, stone commodification research remains in steady contact with the empiric data, and becomes testable; at least the complex results can be followed by the subsystems (cf. below) . The latter is an indispensible imperative for any sort of cross-con-text –or cross-system– interpretation .

2. Neolithic stone commodification: from an ethos of taking to an ethos of making

The establishment of t angible and intangible productive milieus and value systems during “ne-olithisation” (Gebel 2010a) induced and required new human dispositions to all sorts of materi-als, including to source territories, procurement strategies, to their technological and cognitive frameworks, market dynamics and exchange/distribution networks, and to the socio-economic contexts and cognitive spheres they helped to establish and became influenced by .

1 . This contribution is based on the author’s current key publication on neolithic commodification, Gebel 2010a, and uses for illustration findings of stone commodification from his own projects, with an emphasis on examples of intangible (ex-, de- and re-) commodification .

2 . neolithic commodification sensu Gebel 2010a means producing values and value systems which maintain and develop early productive milieus, and productive milieus which generate further values and value systems; neolithic commodification operates in confined reciprocity systems (Foraging –or generalized– commodification operates in non-productive milieus charac-terized by generalized reciprocity .) . In neolithic –or confined– commodification regimes commodities (includes objects, new technologies, product standards and innovative territories, services, exchange standards, ideas, belief systems, etc .) were being constantly created, altered, de-, re- and ex-commodified . Commodities, or “things” sensu Appadurai 1986 and Kopytoff 1986, are more than mere goods; they include their entire environmental, social, technological, economic and cognitive/ideological spheres, and the norms subsequently commodified by the latter . Commodities and commodification regimes are the driving agents and basic norm of neolithic societies . neolithic commodification serves and promotes the new behavioural patterns of humans coming up with productive sedentary and mobile pastoral life, characterized by confined territoriality and confined reciprocity (Gebel in press) . For more explanation cf . below, neolithic Commodification: Meaning, Definitions, and the Sys-temic Approach .

Hans Georg K. Gebel 193

Aside from water (Gebel 2010c) and built space, stone was most crucial for the development of neolithic productive milieus and value systems, both as raw materials as well as means of pro-duction that further created tangible and intangible values . The confined and accelerating seden-tary territories of stone use promoted other prolific industries and sectors of neolithic life, or became responsible for their regression . Behind these were the emerging new patterns of human behaviour with things (sensu Gebel 2010a) which affected the societies’ and the individual’s ter-ritoriality, reciprocity, symbolism, ritual life, and most other elements of social life . Productive stone exploitation and use became the result of shifting values given to and received from stone, as compared to foraging types of mineral exploitation and use .

While foraging patterns of mineral exploitation and consumption appear more adaptive and sometimes casual, and oriented to immediate use, in neolithic times the human behavioural disposition toward stones and minerals became production- and sustainability-minded, and confined to social units and arenas . It was also governed by the need to secure and manage stone-dependent productive systems and the related intangible spheres since the confined sedentary territories of neolithic production only survived by an organized control of sources, manufac-ture, distribution, use, and meaning (Gebel in press) .

With sedentary life, stone working became more complex and rich in products which them-selves triggered more and other products with their work and use spheres, ideological connota-tions etc .; it diversified and specialized procurement and production chains, with clear tenden-cies for surplus production . Work for immediate consumption was reduced on account of work serving all sorts of supply function: Economies became “strategic” . “Solid” and “non-solid” min-erals were used in new production sectors, e .g . large-scale stone mining for certain qualities and new uses, large-scale wall stone extraction and production, burning of limestone for mortar/plas-ter floors, vessel industries using plastic admixtures of minerals, production of chipped and ground stone items at an industrial scale, stone/mineral ornament industries including import of exotic minerals, production of mineral colours, etc . Major fields in which a disposition shift “from taking to making stones” is attested, or is expected to become visible, are:

– resource behaviour: territorial claims to resource; organized procurement; exploitation linked to other environmental skills and subsistence behaviour; etc.

– technological behaviour: local innovations; standardisation of production chains and segre-gation of technological skills (developing crafts); etc .

– diversifying production behaviour: ad hoc, household and craft production; maintenance and recycling behaviour; stone working subject to specialization/social differentiation; etc.

– surplus production behaviour: developments in goods sectors, consumption and prestige triggered acceleration and differentiation processes in blank production and tool kits, and vice versa; markets established for stone/mineral products and related work services; share of stone/mineral working in wealth developments; etc .

– decline in stone needs and stone skills: mostly related to de- and ex-commodification proc-esses occurring with changes or impacts on lifestyles/rank systems (e .g . from sedentary pas-toralism to mobile pastoralism, collapse of social units specialized in confined procurement and environmental technologies after demands on stone products/markets in these sectors declined, etc .) .

– shifts in cognitive stone disposition: ritual and symbolic contexts and use of stone materials: cognitive dispositions, “stone ideology”, “lithic identities”, etc .


More research has to be invested in the ethological background related to stone subsistence in the neolithic3 . I propose to consider all human behaviour and measures to secure the exploita-tion of stone sources aiming to maintain dependent productive milieus and consumption as neolithic stone subsistence (“making stones”) . This would include: 1) securing direct access to sources by territorial claim and surveillance; 2) control of related exchange networks/distribu-tion of raw material and/or finished stone products; 3) establishing and controlling access and exchange to needed raw materials from sources outside the own territory; and 4) consumption and surplus production of stone products become a vital element of internal and external societal and economic transaction . Such permanent stone territories, or stone territorialities, are charac-terized by an active behaviour to secure and optimize the conditions of stone acquisition and consumption . It means that stone-dependent productive milieus are maintained and ruled by securing a permanent and sustainable raw material access, while the conditions of raw material access determine the development of the productive milieus they supply . Disturbances in this interdependence may have caused the decline of production sectors and subsequent economic and social changes which themselves caused further decline in other or more stone production sectors . A good example is the large-scale disappearance of the formal bi-directional blade-core technology and the tool kit decline after the PPnB in the most sites of the southern Levant, when major components of village societies became mobile pastoralists .

Accordingly, I propose that all human behaviour directed at an immediate use and/or con-sumption of stones should be considered as foraging (generalized) stone subsistence (“taking stones”) . needless to say, foraging and productive stone procurement and consumption may considerably overlap, as the commodification of stone in both lifestyles may do: neolithic stone commodification is not free of behaviour directed at an immediate use/consumption of stones, and many behavioural patterns in foraging stone acquisition and use may have followed produc-tive strategies: Since our aim here is to discuss the general trajectory of stone commodification over the millennia, we need to ignore the many examples of productive behaviour in foraging societies and foraging behaviour in neolithic societies . The serious problem of our scholarly problematic neolithic concept, always to separate between foraging and production, is also il-lustrated when we discuss stone commodification .

In his recent book Entangled, Ian Hodder (2012) presented a profound approach to the hu-man ethology of things while avoiding (sic!) to use terms like ethology, disposition, etc . or touch-ing directly competencies in this by other disciplines (environmental psychology, cognitive neu-roscience, and others) . There is not space here to discuss the important implications for our stone topic of Hodder’s study . But it should be stressed that his demand that we take the subjec-tive nature of things more seriously (Hodder 2012: 207) is most welcome, and accords well with current lithic research where the commodification approach is applied .

3 . The “dead-stone understanding” of research has long hindered insights into the supposedly vital relationship that existed between neolithic people and abiotic resources . We should be aware of a general and permanently alerted cognitive “interaction” with the stone occurrences in their habitats, and innovative behaviour triggered by the layers, deposits or minerals . Although I assume that sedentary and mobile neolithic people behaved different with stone sources, I assume that their behaviour at sources was manipulated by the exchange markets and productive milieus they were linked to . While biotic resources “react” directly to human manipulation, abiotic sources directly manipulate human attitudes and innovation by challenging economic behaviour, technological experience, experiment and expertise, and certainly ideological or metaphoric understanding of sources .


3. Neolithic commodification: meaning, definitions, and the systemic approach

neolithic people granted values to things (objects of “commoditisation”), and things gave values to people and their social relations (Appadurai 1986; Kopytoff 1986) . An empirically based un-derstanding of the social life of things has been ignored for long in prehistoric research, and it is not at all inappropriate –even after 25 years– to claim and modify this useful holistic approach for the near Eastern neolithic research (Gebel 2010a) . We cannot discuss here the conceptual differences between Appadurai, Kopytoff and Gebel or the reception of Appadurai/Kopytoff in prehistoric research4, but it may critically be mentioned that some of the theory-loaded modifi-cations, partial receptions, or intellectual discourses after 1986 obscured the “advantage” of the original idea, which rests on the opportunity to stick to empirical data . This is especially true for several of the subjective materiality concepts and approaches .

Commodification in our understanding is not a mere ascription of abstract value to objects which makes them available to exchange systems, or that objects just represent tangible materials and their meaning, moving in and through value systems (e .g . Gosden 2004) . Rather, com-modification in neolithic contexts is when

1) in productive milieus5 tangible and intangible things become the subject of common ac-ceptance and value by (re-) production and use, and receive a social value through this;

2) a behavioural difference occurs between taking and making things (in the neolithic ethos in terms of a confined territorial, reciprocal, and commodification behaviour appearing in the environmental, technological, social, cognitive and ritual spheres of the new produc-tive sedentary and mobile pastoral milieus);

3) things and their biographies “contribute” stability to prolific material and immaterial re-gimes/systems, while the same can be done through their de-, re- and ex-commodification (for the intangible spheres: cf. e .g . figs . 1-7) .

4) it produces the social identity of groups and individuals that regulates relations among hu-mans in their productive natural, built and cognitive/ideological environments while at the same it triggers or directs more/other subjects of commodification allowing growth/sur-plus production, territorial claims, security/confined reciprocity, etc .

Accordingly, the commodification approach and concept

1) is an explanatory framework helping a holistic understanding of productive societies;2) leads to an understanding of the individual artefact/artefact groups beyond empiricism and

allows us to comprehend its social meaning and potential relevance in cycles of reciprocity;3) allows us to reconstruct or expose its cognitive ingredients;4) contributes to cultural memory and vulnerability research; and vice versa .

4 . For this see Gebel 2010: 47ff, Frame 2 . Here it should be mentioned that the commoditization of Appadurai and Kopytoff (1986) means a different process than the author’s commodification:

Commoditization: a process/transformation by which unique/segregated things/values having a distinct economic account become common things/values .

Commodification: a process/transformation by which things of no economic value are assigned a value as a commodity (an object, an innovation, a service, an idea, etc .) .

5 . neolithic commodification must not be related to sedentary social environments; it, of course, also occurs with neolithic mobile pastoralists, although its material evidence appears more restricted in this lifestyle .


Basic commodity types/things (modified from Appadurai 1986 and Kopytoff 1986 for the near Eastern neolithic) are:

1) things produced for material exchange (“commodities by destination”: e .g . surpluses of blades, food, services);

2) things produced to represent a meaning in exchange (“commodities by metamorphosis”: e .g . stone rings, food, feasts) (e .g . figs . 1?,2,5-6);

3) things not yet commodity types 1) and 2), or which had lost their former commodity sta-tus (“ex-commodities”, sometimes re- or de-commodified things) (e .g . figs . 3,5-7) .

Figure 1: Unknown type of wall commodification (magic purpose?): Intra-mural burial of an Infans I inside a house’s double-faced wall. LPPNB Basta (photo: Basta J.A.P., Sperling).

Figure 2: Hoard of re-commodified stone figurines (bear, gazelle, ram’s amulet head)/clay figurine (bucranium), placed at the base of a wall stone robbing pit (reciprocal act?). FPPNB fills in LPPNB Basta (photo: Basta J.A.P., Zu‘bi).


Figure 3: De-commodified marble stone vessels (set on a temporary surface of a room fill, one turned upside down). LPPNB Basta (photo: Basta J.A.P., Sperling).

neolithic commodities/things (modified from Appadurai 1986 and Kopytoff 1986 for the near Eastern neolithic) comprise/are:

1 . objects, services, ideas (elements of belief and magic (figs . 1-4) systems, innovations, social standards, etc .);

2 . created by complex social, economic, political, and ideological needs (even the construc-tion of a value may represent a reciprocal act);

3 . materially subject to exchange (figs . 2,6), consumption, and display;4 . used for prestige (fig . 6), commemoration, tangible value, etc .;5 . endowed with social power because of their material value, perceived efficacy in other-

worldly spheres (fig . 2?), power of creating belief, or their function as a votive object (fig . 2?), as a fetish (figs . 2,4) or charm, as a service or gift, or as a symbol of joint own-ership;

6 . defined by certain social and ideological settings or arenas which prompt the appearance, alteration, and disappearance of their commodity state; commodities have biographies (in the sense of the Systemic Approach);

7 . themselves creating commodities or commodification chains . E .g ., domestic and ritual ar-chitecture can simultaneously be a commodity and commoditize space and things, a recy-cled core taken from a dump can become re-commodified as a hammerstone and assist a wall builder’s commodification of repair services .


Figure 4: Commodification of a hoard of flint celts (unused, one unfinished) for a magic practice: set into the corner of a wall (which it was intended to strengthen?). LPPNB Ba‘ja (photo: Ba‘ja J.P., Gebel).

Figure 5: Ex-commodification of a (fractured) limestone mask, previously used for magic or ritual purposes. LPPNB Basta (photo: Basta J.A.P., Sperling).


Figure 6: Ex-commodified ring fragments. Manufactured from of sandstone varieties, limestone and oil schist. Used as commodity coupons (cf. Gebel 2010a)? Oil schist specimen imitate sandstone specimen. LPPNB Basta (photo: Basta J.A.P., Sperling/M. Nissen).


While the commodification concept represents an interpretative framework, the systemic ap-proach (originally the Basta Systemic Approach, cf. Hermansen, Gebel 2004) is the complemen-tary tool or means of neolithic commodification and research into regimes of commodification . As discussed above, the combined commodification and systemic approaches allow and force us to focus on the empirical archaeological data while generating the neolithic research questions, arguments and results . Provided that neolithic features/commodities are channelled through the systemic framework, the system will demand that we check all contexts in which the features/commodities were of relevance or were acting . This reduces the danger of ambiguity inherent in the concepts of commodity and commodification .

In terms of stone commodification, the systemic approach is the means or technique for checking all tangible and intangible contexts of a stone artefact/artefact assemblage, and how it acts in and flows through the various subsystems . The system acts like a research “questionnaire” constantly self-improving and –in its advanced stage– not allowing us to miss contexts in which and with which they operated the stone artefact/artefact assemblage became relevant . It forces us to identify their entanglement with all other aspects and features of the neolithic system in which and with which they operated . If one wishes, the systemic approach can include us re-searchers becoming part of an artefact’s or an assemblage’s biography (Archaeological Level V) .A huge table interrelating findings by two axes represents the systemic approach:

Figure 7: De-commodified (intentionally broken) flint dagger found in a collective burial. Partly stained in red from pouring a red liquid into the grave (common burial rite). LPPNB Ba‘ja (photo: Ba‘ja N.P., Gebel).


The (Vertical) Biographical Axis:Acquisition Level: A Procurement . Consumption Level I: B Production and Refinement . Consumption Level II: C Processing, Use, and Re-Use .Archaeological Record Level I: D Primary Contexts <Excavation> .Archaeological Record Level II: E Secondary and Tertiary Contexts, Extraction/Export <Exca-

vation, Interpretation>) . Archaeological Record Level III: F non-Contexts/Missing Archaeological Records <Interpreta-

tion>) .Archaeological Record Level IV: G natural Deposition Contexts/Post-Depositional Distur-

bances <Excavation, Interpretation>) .Archaeological Record Level V: H Analysis, Publication, and Post-Excavation Fate of Ruin/

Material .

The (Horizontal) Contextual Axis:Environmental Subsystems with the Local (1) and Regional (2) Resources and Conditions .Exchange Subsystem with the Long-Distance Resources (3) .Technological Subsystems with the Household (4), Workshop/Specialized Work (5) and Com-

munity Sectors (6) . Socio-Economic Subsystem with the Social (7) and Economic/Market (8) Means and Conditions .Cognitive Subsystem with the Innovation (9), Tradition/Conception/Ritual (10) Sectors .

4. Lithic commodities6 and lithic subsistence: general Neolithic evidence

neolithic stone subsistence consists of several major sectors: 1) the stone sources and their logis-tic and innovative frameworks, 2) generalized and specialized raw form/blank production and related innovation/surplus production, 3) generalized and specialized tool technology/tool kits and related innovation/surplus production, 4) building materials and related innovation, 5) oth-er stone-based household and craft production/surplus production, 6) stone-using food process-ing, 7) ornaments/symbolic stone items and related social and conceptional meaning and iden-tity spheres; all these productive milieus must have witnessed and promoted the shift from foraging generalized to productive confined reciprocities (Gebel 2010a) . Permanent training, innovation, and skill/knowledge transfer in the confined neolithic stone craft milieus promoted further the commodification of formal technologies on account of informal technologies . Their sedentary societal framework generated and supported the related economic and consumption needs and stabilized local and regional stone subsistence and with their inherent specific lithic behaviours, including the human relation to his lithic landscape .

Lithic economic dualism (generalized and specialized lithic economies, cf. also Quintero 2010) characterizes most sedentary near Eastern neolithic lithic commodification regimes . There are good examples that socio-economic impacts cause a decline or collapse of lithic dualism, e .g . the aforemen-tioned disappearance of bidirectional core technologies by the end of the LPPnB respectively during the PPnC . While such decline or collapse may be attested with a lithic production system, specializa-tion may still have continued or even been intensified for specific products and related activities .

6 . It should be emphasized that the neolithic meaning or idea of stone commodities may have been less separated –if at all for some cases– from its material/economic value than it is in our modern cultures . For more aspects of the subject cf . the chapter on Commodification and Labour/Consumption in Gebel 2010a: 65ff .


Leslie Quintero (2010: 32f) elaborated four basic modes of chipped stone production and organization which appear applicable –in a general sense– to many near Eastern neolithic chipped and other stone economies7:

1) generalized (unspecialized) household production, meaning an autonomous production of a household serving its own needs (includes ad hoc/opportunistic production);

2) household production, meaning a part-time surplus production (aside from self-sustaining production) by skilled household members aiming to exchange products for goods offered by non-household members;

3) workshop production, meaning a part-time craft specialization engaged in surplus produc-tion with an organizational effort more extensive than (2); and

4) nucleated workshop production, meaning a full-time craft specialization with an organized and extensive procurement, production and non-local distribution (often a specialization of a site community) .

Workshop and nucleated workshop production must have been motors of all sorts of stand-ardization, innovation, and regional traditions . It is expected that neolithic surplus production in stone working is both the consequence and need of progressive work efficiency, a develop-ment which must have ruled also the surplus production of biotic resources (animal breeding, crops); as for food, surplus production with abiotic materials may have played a supportive role in stabilizing supplies and supply strategies (e .g . by vessel industries) . In a way, positive popula-tion dynamics in sedentary environments are directly linked to surplus production, and vice ver-sa: they not only created a greater labour force as compared to foraging societies, the new and more sustainable neolithic subsistence modes must also have created more time for activities not immediately necessary for survival . While less time had to be invested for food acquisition, more time had to be invested in balancing the social consequences of general and surplus production . The confined supply and surplus behaviour and their regimes increased the vulnerability and ag-gressive potential of communities, requiring behaviour and products serving mitigation and bal-ance8 (Gebel 2010b); the diversification of stone products may reflect this9 . Vulnerability, of course, was endemic and promoted by the confined tangible and intangible neolithic territori-alities (Gebel in press) . In the case of stone products, dependence on locally sourced stone prop-

7 . The following production modes do not refer to related stone procurement modes . However, we here refer to two major neolithic stone source types which must have existed:

1 . Corporate source territories: occupation/exploitation repeats but is not continuous; not subject to individual but to corporate ownership; use bound to certain conditions and functions; surveillance of use by representatives of the social units; tendency for restricted/limited use of territory or even transfer into set permanent ownership (through craft spe-cialization): requires mutual acceptance or forced acquiescence .

2 . Obtainable source territories: groups and individuals of several communities access and use a mineral territory; rights to it may get disputed among these individuals and groups, with a high potential for conflict; control of territory can be-come subject of economic interest/dependencies and corporate defence, or of mutual agreement .

8 . It is expected that lacking access to goods already could lead to sorts of social isolation, meaning that products and related services gained social power during neolithization . Probably goods and diversification in good production became more impor-tant the longer household and community hierarchies developed under stable conditions .

9 . Otherwise, the diversification and standardization of stone products is both the result and the cause of tool kit diversifica-tion and standardization of work processes, meaning that commodification in the stone goods sectors triggered commodification in the (stone) labour sectors, often accompanied by skill segregation: commodification and standardization in the goods sectors are sometimes synonymous processes . These may get halted when good commodification declines because it becomes “inappro-priate” or unnecessary for new lifestyles . E .g ., the non-standardized blade blank production, the tool kit “devolution” or the re-duced ornament variability of mobile pastoral communities –as opposed to sedentary communities– apparently was caused by the devolution of social hierarchies and standardization becoming obsolete .


erty and/or regional and long-distance exchange networks could increase the risk of collapse for a site’s stone production, or sectors of its stone surplus production . In such socio-economic envi-ronments lithic identities based on raw materials, technologies and styles begun to characterise resource areas and production sites, and the mineral-rich geology of an area could promote the material culture and importance of an area with all its social, economic and cognitive conse-quences, offers, and economic dependencies .

In the following, some general features and characteristics of neolithic stone commodifica-tion and the related commodity spheres are summarized . They mostly resulted from accelerative processes in prolific production environments forcing diversifications which

– were a result of the social need to diversify/segregate identities on house/gender, communal, and regional levels in food production and processing, and may include elements or ten-dencies to “individualize” identity and action by stone products;

– led to, or increased, the share of new fashions and related demands with the help of stone products;

– led to innovative stone technologies and technological transfer, often developing hierarchi-cal work organisation or other segregated features in stone working processes; migrating stone working specialists?;

– led to, or increased, site-related specialization in stone procurement, working, or distribu-tion (e .g . mining sites, preform sites, blade production centres, bead production centres, distributive function in exchange networks, etc .) that may have resulted in “wealthy” settle-ments;

– show clear tendencies towards a multi-craft and multi-subsistence site economy (craft and subsistence diversification by stone products);

– led to, or increased, the share of territorial control of abiotic resources;– separated stone production and stone consumption to a hitherto unknown extent, includ-

ing the segregation of household and specialized stone working close to prolific sources;– joined stone production knowledge and stone “market knowledge” (for “commodities by

destination”);– caused stone surplus production that resulted in increased regional and long-distance reci-

procity;– established notions of values, or changed notions of values (de- and ex-commodification by

hiding, covering, fracturing (figs . 3, 5, 7), etc . of stone and mineral products): e .g . stone-using iconographic inventories, early recording systems, commodity coupons (e .g . the ban-gle-sized rings of the near Eastern neolithic, cf. Gebel 2010a: 71ff; fig . 6), etc .;

– and other .

5. Neolithic stone commodification research: mission and visions

It needs to be stressed that empirical analysis and information is an indispensible prerequisite for to do stone commodification research . But stone commodification research is the bridge by which lithic studies can finally be translated into historic information and meaning for the near Eastern neolithic, and become part of a holistic perspective on the neolithic trajectory which includes insights on the neolithic heritage in our modern ethos (Gebel 2010a): Commodifica-tion research allows us to evaluate the historic relevance of stone and stone working beyond sta-tistics and graphs, provides the methodological tools for doing so, forces permanent contact to the empirical substratum of a study, and guarantees in many cases testable results .


Hitherto, the empiricism of lithic studies appeared difficult to be translated into general his-toric information, or into symbolic, cognitive, or ethological meaning . Lithic research has to surmount mental barriers and sometimes dogmatism in lithic analysis, and has to proceed be-yond its empirical foundations . Existing studies on a socio-economic understanding of stone in-dustries, lithic identities, etc . are missing the systemic view on stone working and all its contexts (cf. above, the Biographical and Contextual Axes) . Thus it is argued that future lithic studies should

1) evaluate the contextual and biographical aspects of lithic assemblages and individual arte-facts, and introduce the holistic neolithic perspective into studies;

2) keep and extend by this the empirical contact to materials when entering “soft” interpreta-tive frameworks such as stone ethology and cognition, lithic symbolism, lithic expression of ritual, lithic history, and the like;

3) give up the existing “disciplinary” segregation (“chipped”, “ground”, “build”, “plastered”, “rock art”, etc .) in studying lithic procurement, production, use and re-use, etc ., in order to identify existing cross-craft competencies,

4) strengthen the abiotic resources’ research and the related abiotic environmental knowledge; 5) evaluate a community’s stone competencies and link these to the other environmental

techniques and competencies attested in the community;6) approach the historic meaning of stone and stone working;7) connect lithic research to new disciplines such as human ethology (especially territoriality

research), cognitive sciences, and others .

Acknowledgements

For decades I learned from almost everybody who shared her or his results and views on lithics with me, in one way or another . It more and more made me understand that it is the entangle-ments of stones which ultimately explain technological environments and the life of assemblages or of individual artefacts, and that their data are just primary needs for that . I am grateful to those who helped me to reach this understanding, whether noticing their contribution to my developments in stone research or not . My sincere thanks also go to an unknown reviewer for her or his suggestions/amendments .

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