Posted on 05/02/2022 1:02:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Analysis of Bronze Age daggers has shown that they were used for processing animal carcasses and not as non-functional symbols of identity and status, as previously thought...
As daggers are often found in weapon-rich male burials, or ‘warrior graves’, many researchers speculated that they were primarily ceremonial objects used in prehistoric funerals to mark out the identity and status of the deceased. Others suggested that they may have been used as weapons or tools for crafts.
However, the lack of a targeted method of analysis for copper-alloy metals, like those available for ceramic, stone, and shell artefacts, left this problem unresolved.
A revolutionary new method, pioneered by an international research team led by Newcastle University, UK, has enabled the world’s first extraction of organic residues from ten copper-alloy daggers excavated in 2017 from Pragatto, a Bronze Age settlement site in Italy. The new method reveals, for the first time, how these objects were used, for what tasks, and on what materials...
The residues were then observed under several types of optical, digital, and scanning electron microscopes. This allowed the team to identify micro-residues of collagen and associated bone, muscle, and bundle tendon fibres , suggesting that the daggers had come into contact with multiple animal tissues and were used to process various types of animal carcasses. Uses seem to have included the slaughtering of livestock, butchering carcasses, and carving the meat from the bone.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
These 'many researchers' are IDIOTS...................
Only Brit Bronze Age did that.............
My pleasure.
I’m going to guess that daggers were for stabbing things.
L
Hmm... dagger... must be used for dagging things... :^)
I recall looking up the word in my teens. A knife (at that time) was considered to have only one sharpened edge; a dagger and a sword had two, and the difference between the two was length, iow, arbitrary.
We’ve got a painting showing someone getting knighted, therefore, swords had only ceremonial purposes. ;^)
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-accolade-edmund-blair-leighton.html
Sometimes you just wanna get stabby.
Best,
L
Maybe these should be called Bronze Age stabbers.
Brabbers maybe?
L
A common trait, unfortunately.
Industrial manufacturing of wool and wool textiles in Bronze Age Italy
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-industrial-wool-textiles-bronze-age.html
Unique cremation site of the Late Bronze Age was left to the elements
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-unique-cremation-site-late-bronze.html
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