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Searching for the Individual: Characterising Knowledge Transfer and Skill in Prehistoric Personal Ornament Making

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Abstract

Research on prehistoric personal ornaments has focused on patterns in materials, technology and processes of change but struggles to place human thought and action at the centre of interpretation. However, striking examples of variations in production, altered and mended ornaments and different levels of skill visible in the quality of finished products, and subsequent adjustments made to them are a recurring feature of archaeological ornament assemblages. In addition to regional data on preferences for types and materials, the movement of ornaments between locations and interregional influences, this evidence provides crucial clues about choices, individual makers, and perceptions of the learning process. This article asks to what extent decision-making, individual levels of skill and the expectations surrounding learning or knowledge transmission can be successfully identified and interpreted using the often-limited information available from prehistoric assemblages. Examples taken from Neolithic assemblages in Turkey are used to explore the mutually shaping human-ornament relationship, intention, expectations of normality and divergence from expectation in the production of ornament assemblages. Ornaments are found to be subject to structured and unstructured adjustments within complex biographies and an active area of individual interpretation of shared concepts.

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(Modified from Yelözer & Alarashi, 2021)

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Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

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Acknowledgements

The first author would like to thank Professors Douglas Baird and Harun Taşkıran for the permission to study the personal ornaments of Boncuklu Höyük and Suluin Cave respectively, and Prof. Isabella Caneva for the permission to study the basket bead assemblage at Yumuktepe. The second author would like to thank Prof. Mihriban Özbaşaran for her permission and supervision on the study of the beads from Aşıklı Höyük as a part of her PhD thesis and Dr. Hala Alarashi for sharing her knowledge and expertise on the study of prehistoric stone bead technologies. The interpretation of the Aşıklı Höyük ‘butterfly’ beads presented in this paper have benefited greatly from our long discussions on this enigmatic assemblage.

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  1. Department of Archaeology, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey

    Emma L. Baysal

  2. Department of Prehistoric Archaeology, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Sera Yelözer

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  1. Emma L. Baysal
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Correspondence to Emma L. Baysal.

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Baysal, E.L., Yelözer, S. Searching for the Individual: Characterising Knowledge Transfer and Skill in Prehistoric Personal Ornament Making. J Archaeol Method Theory 30, 172–202 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-022-09589-z

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