Pressure blade production with a lever in the early and late Neolithic of the Near East

Abstract

Pressure knapping for the detachment of obsidian and flint blade(let)s has been in use in the Tigris and Euphrates High Valleys and on the Anatolian plateau since the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB), during the middle of the ninth millennium cal B.C. In the High Valleys, the methods associated with the pressure technique evolved significantly during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, leading to more regularized and standardized products. In this context, the appearance of large obsidian blades produced by pressure with the use of a lever could be interpreted as the result of technological experimentation and innovation for the purpose of producing exchange items of high social value. This hypothesis is also valid for the Balikh Valley in Sabi Abyad I; however, the chronological, technological, and social contexts of introduction are different: pressure blades were used in the Balikh Valley from the end of the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (MPPNB), but they were made exclusively of obsidian, and production methods remained unchanged over time. This chapter presents the first evidence for the early production of large obsidian blades using the pressure technique with a lever in Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB) contexts from the site of Çayönü Tepesi, dating to the second half of the eighth millennium cal B.C., at the beginning of the Pottery Neolithic (PN), and from the site of Sabi Abyad I, dating to the seventh millennium cal B.C.