Barbed points from Romanian Gumelnița sites (second half of the 5th millennium BC)

Abstract

At Gumelniţa settlements north of the Danube (second half of the 5th millennium BC and beginning of the 4th millennium BC), barbed points are artefacts constantly present in the archaeological assemblages. They are mainly made on red deer antlers, selected based on their width, particularly adapted to the production of barbed points. Their manufacturing includes three stages: surface regularization following the cutting of the blank, preform shaping and finally, cutting out the specific elements (barbs, protuberances, etc.). The pointed end was shaped by longitudinal scraping, becoming conical or biconvex. The morphology of the proximal end is indicative of several types of hafting. The barbs and protuberances were created using the same procedure (cutting) and the central perforations were carried out by drilling from both sides, resulting in bi-conical perforations. A particular and rare type of barbed point lacks the specific system for the fixation of a thread, as the proximal part continues the shaft. The present study aims to reconstruct the variants of the chaîne opératoire (from raw material to finished pieces), the maintenance/recycling/repair strategies and the possible ways of using the barbed points in the area of interest based on use-wear marks and comparisons with ethnographic examples.