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Abstract
Lack of contextual evidence for the use of small personal ornaments means that much of our understanding of ornamentation traditions within archaeological cultures is reconstructed from ethnographic comparisons. New in situ finds from the areas around the ears and mouth in burials at Boncuklu Tarla, a Neolithic settlement in Türkiye, add a novel dimension to the interpretation of stone ‘tokens’ or ‘plugs’. This article presents a new typology for these artefacts and argues for their use as ear ornaments or labrets in a practice involving significant and lasting corporal alteration.
Highlights
Small, disc or nail-like objects similar to modern and ethnographic examples of labrets— worn through piercings beneath the lower lip—are well documented in the material culture of Neolithic South-west Asia (10 000–6 000 BC, Aurenche & Kozlowski 2005; Baysal 2019) but contextual evidence for their use in the early Neolithic has been lacking
Ergül Kodaş et al (Keddie 1981: 59). This lack of recognition stems from the materials from which these artefacts are made; while stone is widely used in ornamentation from the Epipalaeolithic onwards, clay is rarely associated with ornamentation practices in the Neolithic across most of South-west Asia, yet the above forms appear in clay, at some later Neolithic sites such as Sabi Abyad (Akkermans et al 2012)
Putative labrets are found in the Boncuklu Tarla assemblage: the earliest examples were recovered from PPNA levels at the site and their use continued until occupation ended later in the PrePottery Neolithic
Summary
Disc or nail-like objects similar to modern and ethnographic examples of labrets— worn through piercings beneath the lower lip—are well documented in the material culture of Neolithic South-west Asia (10 000–6 000 BC, Aurenche & Kozlowski 2005; Baysal 2019) but contextual evidence for their use in the early Neolithic has been lacking. Type-5 artefacts come from PPNA and PPNA–B transition levels at Boncuklu Tarla and their distribution within South-west Asia is limited to the southern Zagros region.
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