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RESEARCH PRODUCT

An antler sickle from the Neolithic site of Costamar at Cabanes (Castellón) on the Mediterranean Spanish coast

subject

description

Archaeological excavations at the settlement of Costamar between 2006 and 2008 by the Fundació Marina d'Or uncovered an area of 57 905m² containing 683 archaeological features belonging to Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iberian, Roman, Islamic, late medieval, modern and contemporary times. The Neolithic features belong to two phases. The first, with 203 storage pits, is characterised by the presence of pottery with incised-impressed decoration combined with plastic decoration and pigmentation with red ochre. One outstanding nearly complete vessel is decorated with an anthropomorphic motif. This phase has been dated by a cattle bone (Bos Taurus) to 5996±38 (4990–4790 cal BC at 2σ) and by a grain of barley (Hordeum sp.) to 5965±25 BP (4933–4786 cal BC at 2σ). The second phase is represented by two pits and 69 other negative features, with a radiocarbon determination for a secondary burial in Structure GE 90 of 4095±28 (2860–2500 cal BC at 2σ). A further 116 features with sparse finds have been attributed to the Neolithic, although it was not possible to assign them to either of the two phases, while another 118 features yielded no finds and have been classified as indeterminate. An antler sickle found in a pit of the first Neolithic phase, an exceptional find as few examples are known from Europe (Flors 2010), forms the subject of this short note.