gems, jade, Fischer-Book

Galles describes the excavation of the Mané-er-Hroëk megalithic tomb at Locmariaquer in Brittany, discovered beneath a large tumulus and containing an unusually rich assemblage of prehistoric objects. He details the structure of the monument and the artifacts recovered from it, including numerous polished stone axes and ornaments. Of particular importance to jade studies are several exceptionally fine greenstone axes, some fashioned from jadeite and related hard stones, whose exotic appearance and mineralogical character later became central to the nineteenth-century European “jade question.” The discovery provided secure archaeological evidence that such materials had been used for prestigious objects in Neolithic Brittany and stimulated debate over whether their raw material came from unknown European sources or had reached western Europe through long-distance exchange. The paper is therefore an important early archaeological source for prehistoric European jade artifacts and their archaeological context.