Reconstructing Harvesting Technologies through the Analysis of Sickle Blades: A Case-Study from Early-Middle Neolithic Sites in Northeastern Italy

Abstract

The study of the crop-harvesting technology of the first groups of farmers can notably contribute to the debate on the expansion of agriculture in the Central Mediterranean. The traceological analysis of so-called “sickle blades” represents a valuable proxy for studying the emergence of harvesting technologies during Early Neolithic and their geographic variability. Use-wear traces allow to reconstruct the way in which the tool was used, the type of worked materials, the type of motion and the hafting of the flint blades. In this paper, we present the result of the analysis of a sample of sickle blades from two Early Neolithic settlements in northeastern Italy: Sammardenchia and Piancada. Those sites are particularly interesting because of their location in an area that is a natural crossroad between southern and central Europe and between the eastern and the western Mediterranean. Comparing our results with data obtained from other Neolithic sites of the Italian Peninsula, two different types of sickles have been recognized: sickles with diagonally hafted blades in southern and central Italy and sickles with parallel hafting in the Padan-Alpine region. In our opinion, such a dichotomy might be the result of different paths of diffusion of the agricultural technologies.

Keywords:

• Use-wear
• Crop Harvesting
• Agriculture
• Neolithic
• Mediterranean

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to the Friulan Museum of Natural History and in particular to Giuseppe Muscio and Paola Visentini for the help and the facilities given during the analysis of the archeological materials. This research has been funded by the Fondation Fyssen with a post-doc fellowship. Moreover, this study is part of the research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness: “Approach to the first Neolithic communities in north-east Iberia through funerary practices, HAR2011-23149”. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their precious commentaries.

ORCID

Niccolò Mazzucco http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9315-3625

Juan Francisco Gibaja http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0830-3570

Notes on Contributors

Niccolò Mazzucco (Ph.D. 2014, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). Specialized in the use-wear analyses of flaked stone assemblages; his research focuses on the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic societies in the Mediterranean area. He is currently working on a project on the diffusion of the harvesting technologies in the Central Mediterranean. He is also interested in the archaeology of the mountainous areas, in particular of the Pyrenees where he currently co-direct an excavation campaign.

Juan Francisco Gibaja (Ph.D. 2002, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). He is a Ramon y Cajal post-doctoral researcher at Milà i Fontanals Institution (CSIC). He is specialized in use-wear traces on flaked stone tools from Middle Palaeolithic to Bronze Age. He is currently leading a research project about the burial practices in the NE of the Iberian Peninsula.

Andrea Pessina (Ph.D. 1998, Università degli Studi di Pisa). He is currently the Director of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana. He is a wel-known specialist of the Early and Middle Neolithic of Central and Northern Italy. He co-directed the excavation of both Sammardenchia and Piancada sites.

Juan José Ibanez (Ph.D. 1993, Universidad de Deusto). He is a Tenured Researcher at Milà i Fontanals Institution (CSIC). He is specialized in the microwear analysis of flaked stone tools, which applied from the Upper Paleolithic in northwestern Spain to the Early Neolithic in the Levant. During the last decade, he has been leading an archaeological project in the Near-East (Syria, Liban, Jordanie).