Archaeology of Materials: An Overview of Amber Use in Prehistory

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Amber is still today a material which is highly appreciated in modern societies. To use amber means to be part of the tradition of thousands of years. The topic "amber in prehistory" became very popular in the last decades in European archaeology. It shows a huge potential for understanding the use practices of special materials in prehistoric societies. Baltic amber (succinite) is the best-known fossil resin among the archaeological material. The largest deposits of amber occurs naturally along the southern, southeastern and eastern coasts of the Baltic Sea, thus the theory of the "Northern gold" and its route became most popular. Nonetheless, other sorts of fossil resins, such like Sicilian, Siberian, Lebanon, Canadian, Dominican amber could be used as well. This paper gives the overview of the distribution and context of prehistoric amber finds in and around Europe as well as in Caucasus, Asia, and non-continental regions to recognize the patterns of use of this shiny and very special material and to make a database for the future investigations. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to distribution and forms of amber artifacts and to identify the function and meaning of amber in the prehistoric societies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33282