For decades, it’s been thought bronze age daggers were used as symbols of identity and status for people living as long as 6,000 years ago.
Now, a new study led by the Newcastle University shows that they were in fact used for butchering and carving animal carcasses.
By analysing Bronze Age daggers previously recovered from Pragatto, Italy, they found traces of animal residue suggestive of cutting ‘bone, muscle and tendons’.
First appearing in the early 4th millennium BC, copper-alloy daggers were widespread in Bronze Age Europe including Britain and Ireland, but archaeologists have long debated what they were used for.
Analysis of Bronze Age daggers has shown that they were used for processing animal carcasses and not as non-functional symbols of identity and status, as previously thought. Pictured, one of the experimental daggers
Researchers studied organic residues from copper-alloy daggers excavated in 2017 (pictured here are five)
‘Metal daggers are widespread in Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Europe, yet their social and practical roles are still hotly debated,’ researchers at Newcastle University say in their paper.
‘[Our] method has proved successful in extracting and identifying animal residues located on cutting edges including bone, muscle, and tendons.
‘These are interpreted as evidence of prehistoric carcass butchering and carving.’
As daggers are often found in weapon-rich male burials, or ‘warrior graves’, many researchers had speculated that they were primarily ceremonial objects used in prehistoric funerals to mark out the identity and status of the deceased.
Early metal daggers were long thought to be ‘non-functional insignia of male identity and power’ due to perceived weaknesses in their design and composition, previous studies have suggested.
Other academics had said that the objects may have been used as weapons or tools for crafts, based on the fact they show evidence of being sharpened.
However, previous studies in the last 50 years have been inconclusive due to a lack of a targeted method of analysis for copper-alloy metals, according to the Newcastle experts.
The daggers were excavated from Pragatto, a Bronze Age domestic site in northern Italy excavated in 2016-2017
The new method performed what researchers say is the world’s first extraction of organic residues from 10 excavated copper-alloy daggers.
The daggers were excavated between 2016-2017 from Pragatto, a Bronze Age settlement site in northern Italy.
The project team, led by Dr Andrea Dolfini and Isabella Caricola, developed a technique that used picrosirius red (PSR) staining solution to stain organic residues on the daggers.
Biologists commonly use PSR to make collagen appear in various in tissue sections under cross-polarized light.
The residues were then observed under several types of optical, digital, and scanning electron microscopes.
This allowed the team to identify micro-residues of collagen and associated bone, muscle and bundle tendon fibres, as well as animal fur residues.
The Pragatto daggers had come into contact with multiple animal tissues and were used to process various types of animal carcasses, the team found.
Uses seem to have included the slaughtering of livestock, butchering carcasses and carving the meat from the bone.
The team then carried out wide-ranging experiments with replicas of the daggers that had been created by an expert bronzesmith.
This showed that this type of dagger was well suited to processing animal carcasses.
Pictured are archaeological residues observed in transmitted and cross-polarized light with staining compound picrosirius red (PSR)
Pictured are digital microscope shots of the copper-alloy daggers from Pragatto showing plant fibres and animal fur residues
Residues extracted from the experimental daggers were also analysed as part of the research and matched those observed on the archaeological daggers.
‘The research has revealed that it is possible to extract and characterise organic residues from ancient metals, extending the range of materials that can be analysed in this way,’ said Professor Andrea Dolfini at Newcastle University.
‘This is a significant breakthrough as the new method enables the analysis of a wide variety of copper-alloy tools and weapons from anywhere in the world.
‘The possibilities are endless, and so are the answers that the new method can and will provide in the future.’
The study has been published in Scientific Reports.