Use-wear Analyses of Polished and Bevelled Stone Artefacts during the Sepulcres de Fossa/ Pit Burials Horizon (NE Iberia, c. 4000–3400 cal B.C.)

Abstract

The general aim of this publication is to contribute to the study of the political and economic relationships within the communities occupying the North-Eastern Iberian Peninsula between the end of the fifth and the beginning of the fourth millennia cal BC. This objective has been materialised mainly through the study of the means of production of these communities as well as the interpretation of their funerary practices. More specifically, the economic and symbolic management of the so-called polished and bevelled artefacts (“PBAs”) was addressed in the framework of a general review of the historical period problematics, bearing in mind all the possible data concerning the materiality of the Pit Burial Horizon, in a process of raising and solving questions. In this sense, the polished and bevelled artefacts were understood as a means of arriving at sociological interpretations and not as an ultimate objective.