For more than a century flint daggers have been among the most closely studied and most heavily published later prehistoric lithic tools. It is well established that they are found across Europe and beyond, and that many were widely circulated over many generations. Yet, few researchers have attempted to discuss the entirety of the flint dagger phenomenon. The present volume brings together papers that address questions of the regional variability and socio-technical complexity of flint daggers and their production. It focuses on the typology, chronology, technology, functionality and meaning of flint and other lithic daggers produced primarily in Europe, but also in the Eastern Mediterranean and East Asia, in prehistory. The 14 papers by leading researchers provide a comprehensive overview of the state of knowledge concerning various flint dagger corpora as well as potential avenues for the development of a research agenda across national, regional and disciplinary boundaries. The volume originates from a session held at the 2011 meeting of the European Association of Archaeology but includes additional commissioned contributions.
Contents
1. Foreword
2. Introduction. Flint daggers: A historical, typological and methodological primer (Frieman & Eriksen)
3. Lithic Daggers in the Ancient Near East – Whence and Whither? (Zimmermann)
4. Dagger-like flint implements in Bronze Age Egypt (Graves-Brown)
5. Origins and Development of Flint Daggers in Italy (Guilbeau)
6. On flint and copper daggers in Chalcolithic Italy (Steiniger)
7. The Pressigny Phenomenon (Ihuel, Pelegrin, Mallet & Verjux)
8. The cultural biography of the Scandinavian daggers in the northern Netherlands (Van Gijn)
9. A parallel-flaked Scandinavian type flint dagger from Lent: an indicator of contacts between the central Netherlands and northern Jutland during Bell Beaker times (Drenth)
10. Bloody Daggers. A discussion of the function of Late Neolithic flint daggers from a South Scandinavian point of view (Varberg)
11. Making a point: Re-evaluating British flint daggers in their cultural and technological contexts (Frieman)
12. Bifacial flint daggers from the Early Bronze Age in Volhynia – Lesser Poland (Grużdź, Migal & Pyżewicz)
13. Silicite daggers from the territories of the Czech Republic and Slovakia (a preliminary study) (Přichystal and Šebela)
14. Metal Adoption and the Emergence of Stone Daggers in Northeast Asia (Shoda)
15. ‘Art thou but a dagger of the mind?’ Understanding lithic daggers in Europe and beyond (Frieman)
