The performance of craft skills: some examples from the European Neolithic and Copper Age

Abstract

In recent archaeological discourse, much has been made of performance, whether in gender studies, daily life or special rituals and ceremonies. The nexus of performance is the linkage of (often high levels of) personal, embodied skill with materiality (often exceptional materials or objects) and social context (of social integration). In the European Neolithic and Copper Age, there are many examples of exceptional objects whose making involved high levels of skill but our studies have rarely focussed on those aspects of manufacture where the making of the object is itself the performance or the performative aspects of deposition. And what about those in-between contexts – the mid-life of the object where repeated performances gave the object a life in front of different persons?
In this tribute to Maria Gurova, whose editorial of Be-Ja has been so inspirational for so long, we examine some examples of the performance of craft skills in contexts which include the East Balkan Chalcolithic superblades, the finery of the Valencina de la Concepción mortuary assemblage, and the pressure-flaked flint daggers of the Scandinavian Late Neolithic.