Publication details
La production des anneux-disques alpins pendant les VIe et Ve millénaires av. J.-C. et le Mont Viso
| Title in English | Production of alpine disc-rings during 6th and 5th millenium BC and Mont Viso Mt. |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Revue Archéologique de l´Est |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Geology and mineralogy |
| Keywords | Europe; Neolithic; disc-ring; bracelet; jade; amphibolite; serpentinite; chlorite schist |
| Description | The recent discovery of working sites where disc-rings were manufactured in the Mont Viso massif (Piedmont, Italy), at altitudes of between 2000 and 2500 metres above sea level, allows us to contribute to the debate about the origin and circulation of luxury objects of jade, from the second half of the 6th millennium BC and the first half of the 5th. A combination of typological and mineralogical approaches was used to identify these rings of Alpine rock and to differentiate them from others that had been made of less precious, regionally available stone in France, whose production had been inspired by the Alpine examples. The circulation of disc-rings of Alpine stone (namely jadeitite, omphacitite, eclogite, serpentinite, chlorite schist and metabasic rocks including amphibolites) had formed part of an extensive social phenomenon, with the disc-rings travelling up to 900 kilometres from their source areas. |