Chapter Two – Finding the Tools Through Literature Analysis (PART ONE)
Human thought and customs are similar enough in the course of development around the world that they are able to be compared in a historical sense. This is not to say that world cultures are the same as each other or that all peoples go through the same mythic ‘checklist’ or that variations in cultures around the world aren’t important or valid. It merely suggests that humans tend to make analogous connections, especially to death and the afterlife. Pearson states that because “most ancient funerary rites seem to be archaeologically invisible, … the act of burial provides – a wide variety of potential information about past funerary practices and their social contexts” (Pearson, 1999). These aspects of their culture then lend archaeologists possible explanations as to why artifacts may be discovered with the deceased.
In this chapter I’ll be examining, in overview, various examples of burial rituals and grave goods from around the globe. Initially I will be showing the general nature of burials in their well-known examples and with each following case study I will be increasing the focus onto the cultural groups of Neolithic New Zealand. First, by showing a general grave good case study I will provide readers the background to what will soon become more specific. The level of technology and the material culture, though, will be less ‘advanced’ than the initial example of King Tutankhamun of Egypt during the Bronze Age. Then I will show, moving from Western Europe toward Eastern Polynesia, that rituals based on commonalities of the human condition allow us to respectfully hypothesize as to why tools, such as the Polynesian toki, have been found as grave goods. Based on studying other archaeologists’ research, reasoning suggests that with cultural and technological advancements comes not only a surplus of useful tools of which can become status symbols because of the cost of production, craft specialization, trade, and rarity variables, but also an importance to display the fact that something that came from the earth could be used to control it, which made the people grander than the wild surrounding the community. The reason that this tracks as a logical idea is because while tools, like adzes, may not have been too difficult to create, the idea of creating them was powerful because it was representative of a person being able to control the world around them. Someone had the idea that if they shaped a rock in the proper way, they could use it to carve meat off bone, or to carve away at trees and carve up the soil to use for planting. This takes a level of forethought that human beings find extremely important and valuable, and the adze is a physical representation of this foresight of which the deceased’s families wished to boast.
There are several viewpoints about burial rites from which opinions can be draw. According to Van Gennep, there is a universal theory of rites of passage and burial is one of the post liminal rites, in order to enter the dead into a “new world” (Van Gennep, 1960 in Pearson, 1999). I draw heavily upon the idea that there is a theory that every culture has some sort of rites of passage and that a great many of them have death, in particular, in mind. While burials and funerals have been approached with varying emotions and some superstitions, for example the idea of creating a vampire within a Greek Orthodox Christian culture if anything is crossed over the body before burial (Avdikos, 2013), they continuously link back to that people's’ worldview. “[W]orldview is a web of cultural meanings… a fundamental factor and context in constructing an identity… a set of rules that organizes daily life and a mechanism for comprehending the relationship between human beings” (Avdikos, 2013) and, therefore, a religion upon which a culture bases its rites and rituals around, is a worldview. One reaction of which does seem to be in every worldview is a fear of the dead or of becoming dead, because it is a state of being over which we have no control. As Pearson claims, “fear and veneration may go hand in hand” (Pearson, 1999: 25) and thus separation of ourselves from them and attempting to praise them, whether in memory or gifts, could be ways in which that fear is controlled in the mind of the living.
In the cases of archaeological burial goods, we cannot only find manipulation of the body and its’ positioning, but the grave goods also relay personal and societal information. With what was the person possibly connected to? To whom were they important? And should they be remembered? These are some of the questions that post-processual archaeology attempts to answer.
Grave Goods
Artifacts found along with the body of a person are commonly known as grave goods. Anything can fit into this definition: food, clothes, weapons, tools, makeup, accessories, art, symbols, pets, and human sacrifice. Archaeologists have, therefore, subdivided the category into two with the most obvious distinction, whether the material culture is found on the body (clothing or jewelry) or accompanying it (pottery or weapons) although these specifications will overlap in many cases (Ekengren, 2013). Often thought to be tied with the life of the person the artifact was buried with, archaeologists have long attempted to decipher the purpose behind the decisions made by the people left behind to bury useful objects in graves. As some scholars point out, “the dead do not bury themselves” the appearance of the lives of the deceased are swayed by the people who bury them and therefore, according to Härke, “[T]hese images (or in other words: the ideal world) may coincide with the real world - but then again, they might not” (Härke, 1994: 32).
As part of post-processional archaeological research, this critique must be taken into account while developing the hypotheses as to the possible symbolic nature of material culture. Whether or not the material found is a true description of a person’s life is less important in general to the significance of having artifacts be present within a grave. Especially if the location was secret or respected enough for grave robbers to have not interceded at any time because they want or need the goods more than the deceased which leaves archaeologists with something to study. The people who are taking the acting role of burying the bodies found are showing us that, even putting the symbology aside, they found a purpose for actively, and with forethought, leaving potentially useful artifacts with one who would never use them again, at least not on this plane of existence.
Development of an afterlife is often reasoned to be the reason for burial artifacts as part of the process of the rituals tell the living that the dead will need whatever is buried with them. Death and the subsequent funeral, as the final ritually transformative processes, are both meaningful for the social dynamics of the dead and those left alive. The living are demonstrating the social and personal: ideological, emotional, and physical changes that go along with dealing with death (Ekengren, 2013). From one standpoint, the artifacts are more than just objects and have a symbolic meaning, which we should be able to reason out with enough data. With each piece of material culture, the world in which the person lived becomes clearer if the pieces are meaningful representations of aspects of that person’s life. I briefly brought up the ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamun; since Howard Carter discovered his tomb in the early 1920s, archaeologists have been attempting to recreate a picture of the nineteen-year-old, boy-king’s life. This is relevant because even though King Tutankhamun was young, his is one of the richest tombs ever discovered with over 50,000 artifacts entombed with him (Williams, 2015). Tutankhamun had not had time to rule the kingdom on his own, becoming the ‘ruler’ at the age of nine with his mother and uncles to rule alongside him until he came of age (Williams, 2015). Like many kings and pharaohs of the time, having extravagantly golden-gilded gifts surrounding a tomb was an easily identifiable sign of wealth and power. As, however, Jon Manchip White suggests in the foreword he wrote for a re-released edition of Howard Carter’s journal on Tutankhamun, "[T]he pharaoh who in life was one of the least esteemed of Egypt's Pharaohs has become in death the most renowned" (White in Carter, 1977). This nineteen-year-old became well-known because of what was left behind, by people who might have buried all of that material in order for the entire reign to be forgotten by future generations. Whether or not these artifacts were a bestowal to honor the dead or a way of simply ridding themselves of memories, there was some sort of purpose to not melting the metal down to re-use or breaking the objects apart. Depending on what was easier to create and what material was easier to find greatly depended on wealth and trade access. It would be no surprise that a king could much more easily have his artisans get a hold of whatever he wanted, and the accessibility to more advanced technology made it quicker and easier to produce whatever they may have needed, both during and after Tutankhamun was alive.
These burials and artifacts are from late in Egypt’s 18th dynasty during the Early New Kingdom which is classified as a bronze-age civilization (Ramsey, 2010). In this era much of the simplification of manufacturing techniques had not yet come into being. There was no metal work being accomplished, which made manufacturing the stone that much more difficult. Items need a certain amount of time and energy to create, which is what is called the production cost, and during the era known as the Neolithic this would have been greater than during the Bronze Age. To examine this era of history (or prehistory) more specifically, I will be drawing upon a few different cultures around the world whose similarities could start, and end, with the fact that they used stone tools during this time against opposing outside influences.
Neolithic Technology and its Influence on Burials
The Neolithic was a period when there was an increase of stationary, agricultural cultures rather than the roaming bands of hunter-gatherer Paleolithic groups, thus it also saw the rise of common burial mounds and cemeteries (Lenneis, 2007). Kuijt views these mortuary practices “as a form of human behavior that is actively chosen by actors in relation to specific beliefs and a broader worldview and symbolic themes, rather than a direct reflection of social organization” (Kujit, 1996: 315). Based on the rituals interpreted from the Natufian culture within the Levant region, Kujit theorized the cohesion of burial practices and the placement of artifacts in graves reflected the societies growth into an active community (Kujit, 1996). Because it is an act of a social performative narrative for the invited audience in particular, the symbology of the burial itself and the material within is not necessarily a direct reflection of the deceased’s identity. It is a show, whether for status, authority, or importance, but the central social ethos of the combination of what the community finds most valuable and the ties between “households”, including economically, socially, and religiously (Kuijt, 1996: 315-316).
With the similar rates of technological advancement and stone tool use, the social aspects of the community had to be continuously maintained. The last act of a burial, or ‘mortuary ritual’, would demonstrate the deceased’s influence, be it economic, social, or both (Kuijt, 1996). When looking at ritual burial through this lens, the usefulness of items buried alongside the body becomes increasingly important to the stabilization of a group of people. While there were not many prestige goods, nor grave goods in general, within the Natufian burials, they did sometimes contain utilitarian objects, such as pins for holding clothing together (Kuijt, 1996: 319). This may not leap out at a reader that this is significant but leaving behind any re-usable item can be an example of this ritual practice. As the ritual itself, while “a cohesive force is based, in part, on the realization that mortuary practice is a form of public action, a social drama designed and conducted by the living, often to elicit community participation” is not the show of a higher status or ‘wealth’ (Kuijt, 1996). So therefore, the act of a mortuary ritual was not indicative of people with greater prosperity. The implied social cohesion of the communities’ involvement in that practice would be for either social identification or luxurious boasting. Examples of these include: having the bodies and skulls in particular positions or items being buried alongside bodies, such as shells, bone and shell beads, or pendants for decoration/adornment (Bar-Yosef, 1986 & Kuijt, 1996).
With humans being in constant competition for who will survive and procreate, the agricultural revolution and community settlements were valuable changes. The people living then, however, still had to compete over the resources that were available. During this time of technological and economic development, the cultures had to continue to advance as well, namely within their allocation of responsibilities. When farming or fishing or hunting or gathering by fewer than the entire population, other members of that society were able to produce an ever-increasing number of new instruments and ideas for how to use them. With the ability to form a centralized society that works together to survive and create increasing organizational skills, a society will soon lead to specialized skills for individuals, giving them a particular role and identity in their group (Renfrew & Bahn, 2008).
Burial Practices & Common Artifacts – what would they keep?
The mortuary or burial rituals were most likely not the most important or obvious way to demonstrate the deceased’s power and status in a community. But with the increasing level of personal identity traits for each person, the community saw them a specific way, and would have wanted to honor that, leading to the leaving of items that they believed to be special to the dead. This must have followed some kind of cultural approval of the belief in some kind of an afterlife and/or in ancestor worship (Kuijt, 1996). The specific artifacts included would vary greatly depending upon what materials were available wherever a particular culture existed and what they would have deemed important. Personal artifacts may relate to either a familial or personal identity, which are commonly featured in human burials, and demonstrates the society’s development of shared activities, whether through ritual or in the construction of public works (Renfrew & Bahn, 2008).
In Neolithic England and Western Europe, sites have been found with individuals in different bodily positions and with various dress, tools, jewelry, and weapons with food and drink being the most common (Pearson, 1999). Though the bodies and artifacts are the physical evidence of these people after they passed, the act of the ritual burial itself is telling about their structure of reality. These goods reflect what the cultures find most important in their world, because these were directly impacting how they interacted with their environment, be it just attempting to survive, how they could control it, or how to place themselves apart from it. The fact that they these started rituals, which then continued over generations doesn’t only provide evidence of prehistoric myths and religion, but of a societal understanding and agreement that certain activities are of greater importance to the community; therefore, these ‘privileged practices’ are hailed as having greater importance (Bell, 1992). These practices may or may not have specifically religious connotations, but because it is only a much more modern Western viewpoint that actively separates the sides, many social functions could be for the benefit of the community structure, economy, and religious ideology (Artelius & Svanberg, 2005).
Specifically examining a cemetery with the artifacts that date from the Middle Neolithic in Borgeby, Scania, a region in the south of Sweden, graves of children were found in a large group with miniature replicas of flint axes (Larsson, 2000 & 2003). With an axe workshop site nearby, this may hold symbolic value shown through the sheer numbers that were buried (Artelius & Svanberg, 2005). Whether meaningfully ‘cult’ or ‘ritual’ in purpose the use of the material demonstrates to archaeologists that these children were born into a privileged position in their society. Their group burial and artifact ‘use’ reflects that even without a long life, the interest in them goes beyond their familial circle towards the possible community they were working towards (Artelius & Svanberg, 2005). These flint axe replicas cross the boundaries of definitions for clothing/adornments vs. grave good or gifts. At times these axes were worn about the neck as personal adornments, yet still held the symbolic value to the community of being actual weapons or tools (Lenneis, 2007).
Scania, as region occupied in early Scandinavia, was one of the places from where the Iron Age Vikings hailed. In the same area as the older child cemeteries in Borgeby, there were also gold and silver workshops in the Iron Age (Brorsson, 1998). As this site’s location has similar artifacts to the Neolithic graves, the Vikings commonly buried small necklaces with hammer and axe shapes as pendants [figure 2] and the hammer rings [example shown below in figure 3], while found in the Iron Age burials, these adornments are proof of the continuous settlements of Borgeby. The hammer rings and the pendants of Mjölnir (Thor’s Hammer) threaded upon them are thought to be symbols of protection by Thor, the Norse God of lightning, and either Odin or Freya, with a connection to childbirth (Artelius & Svanburg, 2005). When found alongside other grave goods such as ceramics, brooches, faunal remains, etc. and within many burials, no matter the gender, age, or social position, these axes and hammer pendants have less of a personal nature and may be intended for general well-being of the community (Artelius & Svanberg, 2005). Instead of being symbolic of a weapon or of an actual tool, a demonstration of a position during the person's’ life, it works into the more religious standpoint, when there is a ritual meaning to putting the time into working on these figures.
Focusing on the Neolithic, the United Kingdom and Ireland have several examples of tools or weapons as grave goods, though evidence shows that they were never used as such. Because the symbology of the burial ritual itself could imply differing ideas of what, if anything, awaits us beyond death, as there are different rites across the globe, the items within could likely have a highly symbolic nature. For instance, there are peoples who may bury their dead with blades to cut their ties with the living (Grainger, 1998). These blades do not necessarily have to be able to cut, because they will, presumably, not ever be used again, but the mere idea of it being there is what gives it meaning. Another example of this is the nine-thousand-year-old axe that was found in a Mesolithic (Mid-Stone Age) Northern Ireland burial. As the Mesolithic transitions into the Neolithic at the advent of agricultural revolution, the diets, human ways of living, and the societal groupings all dramatically shift in a (relatively) short time span (Jones, 2017). Depending on which cultural area one is referring to, this transition took place at varying dates; however, what is important is to note that because subsistence strategies were so different from what would follow. Because humans did not previously engage in large works and craft specialization as much, it is more impressive that the living would have carved out a fully polished axe that had no sign of use and left it alongside the remains of the dead (Collins & Coyne, 2006). The bones of the cremated body had been identified as male, which could give some of the context behind the artefacts which are suggested to have been buried between c. 7530-7320 BCE (Collins & Coyne, 2003: 25, Woodman, 2001: 252). This and a few of the other seventeen lithics and two possible microliths found showed possible evidence of burning in the cremation type burial.
Similarly, if we look at sites in Neolithic Britain, c. 4000-2500 BCE, the people also had burials of bodies, both cremated and un-burnt, with grave goods and circular barrows to identify the location of the burial itself. There were also times and places where these markers would also double as boundary lines for land or territory. Whether as a single or a group burial, which according to Thomas does not necessarily mark a differentiation in status, “prestige objects”, such as worked stones and in the late Neolithic copper and bronze pieces, had been found as well. Thomas also suggests that the act of presenting these items to the dead were making the goods symbolic, at the same time heightening the elites’ legitimacy. If a person was buried in a group with their own prestige goods, it had the symbolic meaning of being more important within a larger group (Thomas, 2000: 654).
In some places territorially strategic burials are more commonplace. On the island of Gotland off the coast of Sweden, for example, there are still single and multiple bodies burials and grave goods are abundant. In the study done on Pitted Ware Culture (c. 3400-2300 BCE) burial sites in Ajvide, Västerbjers, Visby, Ire, and Fridtorp, the grave goods from 126 adult graves were found and measured along with the goods from 50 children’s graves. When compared across the island there were, according to Molnar, ten items that were the most commonly found: two different types of beads, boars’ tusks, teeth arrangements, axes, edge blades, awls, fish hooks, harpoons, and arrowheads without, at least in terms of the axe tools, there being any specific overall gender bias (Molnar, 2010: 9). The higher ratio of more grave goods in gender, in general terms, went to females and in age, to the young (Molnar, 2010). If we look specifically at the axes and awls, in terms of them as tools and not weapons which can be reused and are in most graves, usually more than once, and with every group equally the conclusion was drawn that the goods themselves aren’t as reflective of the individual person, but of the society as a whole.
This is different than the personal adornments which were more common in the Neolithic burials of Central Europe. While cemeteries themselves are not as commonly found in Neolithic Eastern Europe, LPC (Linear Pottery Culture) age sites contained more individualistic burials. There were some graves with snail shell necklaces and head adornments as well as ochre around the head [figure 4] (Nieszery, 1995, Abb. 99, 100), but within a male burial there was an adze found along with the shell adornments wrapping around the body [figure 5] (Lenneis, 2007: 130-135).
Central Europe
As we move southwards into the region, now part of mainland Spain, archaeologists have readily acknowledged that social inequality is what is being developed through time and is being shown with the increasing differences in burial goods (Vila, Domínguez-Bella, Duarte, López, & Tocino 2015). In the Campo de Hockey necropolis in San Fernando (Cádiz) only a few tombs were found to contain grave goods at all. Most of the human burials were sideways facing, in the fetal position, within a cyst or ‘box’ made from piling slabs of rock on top of each other with possible shells and bone that may be found in the smaller graves for a possible functional or ornamental purpose. But the general rule in this locale is that the goods that would be considered prestigious only appear in the three tombs that are also the most complex (Vila, Domínguez-Bella, Duarte, López, & Tocino, 2015: 150). The “prestigious” goods in this area have been defined as jewelry made from amber or single amber beads, variscite and turquoise, green and blue respectively, stone beads, polished axes, and ceramics with ochre, a red pigment like cinnabar (Vila, Domínguez-Bella, Duarte, López, & Tocino 2015: 155-159).
Archaeologists who worked and wrote on this site in the Iberian Peninsula theorize that this necropolis burial pattern, with specific area bases and highly size subjective burials, demonstrate the connections to power which were becoming more prevalent in the stationary villages of Neolithic society. This site in particular is one of the major examples where inheritance is a larger aspect of item and territorial ownership, along with differentiation in gender, as demonstrated by location of their graves within the necropolis and the types of grave goods that are contained inside (Vila, Domínguez-Bella, Duarte, López, & Tocino, 2015: 159). The major prestige artifacts like amber, variscite, and turquoise beads and polished axes are only found in the most elaborate and largest burials, with very few of each being found in general.
I will focus on the three highly polished axes, two made of sillimanite, found in the “two most notable tombs (E3 and E11 C15 C14)” and the third from a conglomeration of metamorphic rock (Vijande, 2011: 15). Outside the graves, there was another trench dug, and within a perimeter trench there was another highly polished piece of black rock. The archaeologist who worked on this site had identified this too as an axe, one that had been used and worn down, suggesting that it could have been used to dig the very trench it ended up in, though if so, the question would be ‘why’, but the writers make no suggestions (Vila, Domínguez-Bella, Duarte, López, & Tocino, 2015: 157).
Elsewhere in the Northeastern Iberian Peninsula, specific in the region of Catalonia, there are a wide variety of burial sites due to: the high variability of environments, the climate, terrain, and soil composition. These factors also play into the typology of the burials as will, which vary in size, volume of goods, and the ritualistic characteristics of possible gravestones, bodily position, and possible postmortem movement (Gibaja Bao, 2004: 680). Within three cemeteries, show map displayed in figure 6 above: Sant Pau del Camp – SPC, B∂bila Madurell – BM and Cami de Can Grau – CCG, there were many grave goods found as well inside the often one-person, fetal positioned graves. The majority of these graves, from different regions do contain grave goods, including ceramics, plants, ornaments made of turquoise and shells, and tools made from bone and knapped stone. Examining the lithics at each site showed archaeologists that while SPC and CCG had the majority of their stone tools made from a “mediocre flint” the majority of the stone tools buried in BM cemetery were made using a “high-quality flint” suggesting that the people who were buried in that cemetery had a higher social standing, and could get material from further away, as opposed to the local flint pieces (Gibaja Bao, 2004: 681-682).
The stone tools themselves were mostly flakes, blades, cores, and hammer stones with only the notably polished axes being found in the male burials in B∂bila Madurell. This binary status is not the rule of the area, as there have been female burials found within large graves and with more prestige goods than men, and no marked differentiation within the burials in the Camí de Can Grau, because both men and women worked with stone tools. Commonly, however, the agreement between the archaeologists has been that men are more likely to be buried with items made of material from foreign origins which take the tool shapes of querns, cores, stone points, and the polished axes. Women were shown to be more often buried with blades and flakes and children with cores, points, and microliths, suggesting that while the use of stone tools was not divided by gender or age, the division lies in the particular tasks the people were set to do. Even with the goods found in child burials, some of which had more space and grave goods than adult burials [figure 7]. This also leads archaeologists to speculate that there is an implied social hierarchy in which wealth and status are related and inherited from the older generations. (Gibaja Bao, 2004).
Romania contains a cemetery in Cernavodă – Columbia D that contains graves and their subsequent goods from the Hamangia cultural phase, present-day countries of Bulgaria and Romania [figure 7] (Kogalniceanu, 2015). This culture, whose Neolithic technological level gave the people the means to make highly specialized artwork were found in the necropolis of Cernavodă in the 1950s along with numerous examples of stone tools, such as axes, adzes, and chisels, the majority of them highly polished (Slavchev, 2004-2005). This particular cemetery has two major areas which had been attributed to either various time periods of burials or the social statuses of the people buried within them, playing into the layout and number of the stone artifacts as well (Kogalniceanu, 2015: 54).
If we specifically focus on the stone tools found alongside the bodies, there are three different types between which the pieces were separated. To differentiate the types, the archaeologists measured all the tools and compared them with morphological characteristics that will be covered more in Chapter 4. For our purposes at the moment I will be focusing on the action of the people choosing to create these specific ‘tools’ that were likely used as such. While the data from the initial recording of the tools, recorded by Berciu in 1966, suggested that they did not have signs of use-wear done by the tool working, when revisited in the 1970s small chips were recorded on the blade showing its use pre-burial [figure 8] (Kogalniceanu, 2015: 53). Other pieces had evidence of reshaping pre-burial that would suggest the reworkability of the tools; pointing to the question of why they would be buried now, especially if they could have continued to prove functionally useful.
Along with the fully finished artifacts, archaeologists also found a small number of fragmented tools (four) and ‘dummy axes’ (eleven identified) that were only used as grave goods. The unfinished pieces and smaller pebble versions are made to resemble the finished product [figure 9] (Kogalniceanu, 2015: 53-54). These artifacts follow more closely the representational path which both the Scandinavian and Western European cultures both took part in independently of each other.
The upper portion of the cemetery notably had much more in the way of grave goods compared to the lower potion, and the majority of the tools found in all areas were adzes. Another aspect of the grave goods between the areas has been where they are placed in relation to the body. In the Upper section the tools are placed near the head and shoulder, which does not appear in the Lower; instead they tend to lay the tools upon the body’s chest, with only two examples of this practice being found in the Upper section (Kogalniceanu, 2015: 58-59). Interestingly, there is not a clear dimorphism between male and female grave goods, as they both contain real and dummy axes and adzes, some which were unfinished and others that were pebbles carved to look like the tools. The raw material is also evenly split, finding goods made of limestone in the lower cemetery, and Greenschists and volcanic rocks in the upper cemetery. In this case, the question is whether these were placed as weapons or tools. Carved stone has many uses: axes can be used chop down trees, hunt, and therefore has use as a weapon. While adzes and chisels are predominantly used for agriculture and for carving wood and leather, like axes they could also be used as weapons. From more extensive analysis, however, use-wear markings have been recorded on both the adzes and chisels suggesting that they were used as tools and thus the axes, which were found buried in a similar way, are ascribed the same meaning for both genders equally (Kogalniceanu, 2015).
The total grave good analysis also includes the ‘dummy’: unfinished, imitation, broken, and miniaturized tools. Tsoraki postulates that when tools found in graves are made out of material in which the true tool would not be useful in, such as amber or clay, that it then must have had symbolic connections (Tsoraki, 2011: 241). Behavior like this, including pieces made from small pebbles is reminiscent of the Nordic cultures that I have previously discussed, and the hypothesis is that the stones themselves had meaning to the people, not as a social status symbol, but as a part of their community identity. This idea was put forth in Kogalniceanu paper because while the true tools, of which were buried, had been used and the raw materials were imported, the imitation and miniature pieces were made from local stones that were easy to gather. In this area the imported and polished stones tools buried were either full, intact pieces or the dummies. If any pieces were found as fragments the breaks looked to be unintentional, and likely post-burial, therefore it is also thought that the completeness of the item correlates to its affectivity in its symbolism. However, if we examine miniatures in the same way, they would not match the completeness model because as Kogalniceanu (cited in Tsoraki, 2011) defined miniature tools as too small to be used and therefore would no longer be functional as the original tool it was based on, thus would not fall within the boundaries of ‘true’ symbolism as defined in this area. This still may have some sort of symbolic meaning, as almost every single grave in these cemeteries contained at least one tool, whether real or a ‘dummy’, that was used as an active tool at some point during its life. Given the area the tools were most likely used for agricultural or woodworking, which could have been symbolic of how the ancestors of the people being buried claimed and settled the land, and may need to continue to hold it in the ‘next world’ (Kogalniceanu, 2015: 61-63).