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Battleaxes: Home-made, Made to Order or Factory Products?

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Author

Editor

  • Lena Holm
  • Kjel Knutsson

Summary, in English

Many scholars have claimed that the stone battle axes of the Battle Axe Culture were status objects with a social rather than a pratical function. One way of investigating this is to study the context in which the battle axes were manufactured, and by whom. If any object is to serve as a mark of status, it must be possible for someone who wishes to assert his/her superiority over other community members to limit the object’s availability. This limitation may involve a rare raw material, unusual knowledge about its production, time consuming or labour consuming production, etc. My work aims at analysing a number of possible prehistoric status objects, among them the battle axe, in order to ascertain the organisation of the production. This may in turn be related to the organisation of society

Department/s

Publishing year

1998

Language

English

Pages

125-140

Publication/Series

Proceedings from the Third Flint Alternatives Conference at Uppsala, Sweden, October 18-20, 1996

Document type

Conference paper

Publisher

Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University

Topic

  • Archaeology

Keywords

  • prestige-goods
  • Neolithic battle axes
  • craft specialization
  • workshop industry
  • organization of production
  • stone technology

Status

Published

Project

  • Handmade. Crafting and social strategies in the Scandinavian Neolithic

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 91-506-1267-0