Robin Skeates

Mediterranean coral: its use and exchange in and around the alpine region during the later neolithic and copper age

in «Oxford Journal of Archaeology» vol. XII n. 3, 1993, pp. 281-292

Summary. Different types of Mediterranean coral are descrive, and the potential sources of prehistoric coral in the central Mediterranean are considered. Early examples of coral artefacts from in and around the alpine region, as well as their finds-contexts, are then described and chronologically defined, and their value, use, and exchange is discussed.

INTRODUCTION

The place of Mediterranean coral is now well-established in the later prehistory of Europe, particularly as a result of work carried out by Sara Champion (1976, 1982), but, despite previous studies by an Italian scholar, Giovanni Trescione (1953, 1956, 1966), its earlier history of use and exchange has generally been overlooked by archaeologists. This is hardly surprising, considering the apparently small quantity and size of early coral artefacts originally produced, the fragile and perishable nature of coral, and the dispersed and limited nature of publications describing finds of early coral artefacts. The main purpose of this paper is therefore to increase readers’ awareness of the significance of coral in the earlier prehistory of Europe, in the hope that further examples of early coral artefacts will come to light, either in the existing literature, or through careful escavation and recording. More specifically, it is intended as a contribution to on-going research into Neolithic exchange in Italy (e.g. Barfield 1981; Ammerman 1985; Malone 1986; Skeates in press).

CORAL

Coral is a calcareous substance which is secreted by many kinds of marine polyps as a skeleton for support and habitation (Wells, ed. 1988; Dubinsky, ed. 1990). It occurs in a wide range of forms in the Mediterranean, which vary in association with different light competition for space (Campbell 1982). Red Coral or Precious Coral (Corallium rubrum Linneus), for example, which is the best known, most valued, and most commonly collected, of the Mediterranean corals, comprises hand growths which branch out in all planes, reaching up to 0.5 m in height. It is generally red, but occasionally pink or white, and in rare cases brown or black; and it grows on poorly illuminated substrates, between 50 an 200 m below sea level… leggi tutto