OBSTRADE was developed to understand the emergence of the first Neolithic exchange networks: obsidian trade at the onset of farming in the Near East. The transition from nomadic hunter-gatherers to sedentary farmers is one of the most significant turning points in human history. From 12,000 to 6,500 cal BC, plants and animals were intensively exploited and then domesticated while mobile hunter-gatherers evolved into sedentary farming communities in the Fertile Crescent. Long-distance exchanges between Neolithic villages increased considerably, showing the existence of complex social networks, of which obsidian trade was a major component. Obsidian presence on the sites is documented already from the Epipalaeolithic, if not earlier. However, systematic exchange, involving specialized obsidian workshops, took place in the Neolithic with the emergence of sedentary life and social complexity. This volcanic rock was a valued commodity, distributed over very long distances from its original sources in Anatolia and Caucasia, up to the extreme eastern and western fringes of the Fertile Crescent. OBSTRADE aimed at understanding why was obsidian traded if other equally suitable raw materials were available? Were obsidian tools used for different tasks? What was the role of the obsidian complex network in the diffusion and spread of new ideas, techniques, and innovations, in other words, the Neolithic way of life, across the Fertile Crescent?
The project employed an original, innovative, and interdisciplinary approach, by exploring the function of obsidian tools in the daily life of the Neolithic communities, and its geographical distribution. Obsidian tools discovered in major Near Eastern archaeological sites are analyzed for the first time through a microwear quantitative approach, based on high-precision surface texture analysis using Confocal Scanning Microscopy (CSM) and surface metrology. Resulting data, crossed with obsidian acquisition and distribution information, are analyzed through mathematical modelling in the frame of the Complex System Theory for characterizing and assessing the mechanisms of diffusion of obsidian artefacts between Neolithic societies across the Near East.
The first objective of the project was to provide an exhaustive database (OBSTRADE database) comprising the geochemical information about obsidian objects found in Neolithic context in the Near East. Understanding why obsidian was seen as a commodity requires defining the use value of obsidian artefacts, which represented the following step of the project. This goal has been achieved through the study of use-wear traces and residues observed on both experimental and archaeological obsidian tools combining quantitative and qualitative cutting-edge techniques. Thus, the project was dedicated to creating a robust experimental framework for CSM, for the analysis of obsidian material, carrying out new specific experiments. Then, obsidian assemblages from major Neolithic sites in the Near East have been studied, leading to new data about the function of obsidian tools, and chipped stone toolkits in general. The final objective aimed to understand the mechanisms of diffusion of obsidian artefacts across the Near East and was pursued using information on obsidian sources, distribution, manufacture and function recorded on the OBSTRADE database. Mathematical modelling, currently ongoing, will help to further explore the mechanisms beyond the spread and exchanges of obsidian tools within the Neolithic sphere, and its role in the diffusion of the Neolithic package in the whole Near East, and beyond.
