Spain and Portugal: long chisels and perforated axes. Their context and distribution

Abstract

The find of long chisels and hoe-adzes has seemed for years an almost exclusive feature of the NW Iberian Neolithic closely linked to the final stages of the local megalithic phenomenon. Nowadays, we can insert the presence of those artefacts within a more widespread pattern both in time and space that would start at the Early Neolithic and extend over the Douro bassin, the Cantabrian coast and into the Center of Portugal, including not just the long axes but also the peculiar butt-perforated axes made from fibrolite. From the 104 pieces catalogued, we can distinguish three main groups. The first comprises those axes whose raw material (green stone), high level of polishing and morphology could assign them to the Alpine set. Another group is made up of chisels or hoe-adzes whose raw material tends to be greenish, on these the polishing is not always so careful and there is a measure of typological variety. Finally, we could single out those axes, usually manufactured in finely polished fibrolite and having a hole in the butt end. Numerically, the second group is by far the most numerous, followed by the perforated axes (Cangas type) with just a few examples of Alpine-like pieces. As for the context, our collection is very often composed of casual finds, a circumstance that could be due to different factors such as losses, intentional deposits, plundered tombs or even the contemporary antiques trade. In a number of cases, pieces come from burial contexts and among those we can distinguish two associative patterns : A) long axes + beads + fibrolite small axes + quartz prisms ; B) long axes + perforated tools (mace heads, battle axes, double adzes). In both instances, pottery seldom occurs. In the first case, contextual analysis and a few C14 dates might point to a Neolithic chronology, around the transition V-IVth millennia cal. BC, while in the second a IIIrd millenium temporal setting seems more plausible. While in the case of some of the (presumably) Alpine samples a long-distance trade may be put forward as a hypothesis, most of the long axes from N and NW Iberia could well have had a more or less local manufacture, as the probable raw material and certain variety of morphologies would suggest, but nevertheless they are echoing customs or rituals found elsewhere in SW Europe.