Fashioning Identities, Forging Inequalities: Late Neolithic/Copper Age Personal Ornaments of the Portuguese Estremadura

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From an analysis of over 3,000 beads and pendants from seven contemporary Late Neolithic/Copper Age(3500–2500 BC) sites in the Portuguese Estremadura, two dominant patterns emerge: (1) most beads show a high degree of standardization in terms of size and shape and are made from local materials; and (2) a minority are made from non-local, rare, and visually distinctive materials (e.g. variscite, ivory), and are less standardized and more labour-intensive. he emphasis on a wide-range of materials suggests that uncommon ornaments may have functioned as ‘value added’ materials with special significance, enhancing potential design combinations. Material preferences for beads, bracelets, pendants, plaques, and ground stone tools suggesting that the Estremadura participated in aspects of a wider system of shared symbolic values.