Communities of Practice in Neolithic and Copper Age Iberia: The Application of RTI to the Engraved Stone Plaques

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Engraved slate plaques are a distinctive feature of the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the west and south-west of the Iberian Peninsula, largely recovered from megalithic tombs, as well as diverse mortuary and non-mortuary contexts. More than a century of research has investigated their form, function, distribution, and evolution across the fourth and third millennia BCE. The plaques have been variously interpreted as heraldic objects, mnemonic devices, ‘goddess’ figurines and zoomorphic children’s toys, among other views. Their association with human skeletal remains has led to the suggestion that many were funerary offerings.

However, the life-history of these objects have received less attention and remain a subject of ongoing research. This study applies RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) to a sample of 26 plaques and plaque-fragments, to analyse the sequence of marks and identify distinct and comparable traits, testing the hypothesis that shared ‘communities of practice’ were responsible for their production. This analysis assesses the entire corpus of marks present on each artefact, to establish their full life-histories. The study supports previous work that plaque production was locally specific, and identifies expert and novice engravers on individual plaques. Distinctive ‘isolated marking groups’ on several plaques were identified as possible symbols of authorship.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52712