Critiquing the logics of prestige in the interpretation of Cycladic Figurines: Towards an archaeological theory of value

Abstract

This article applies the concept of enactive signification to the subject of Early Cycladic figurines, critiquing the use of prestige frameworks for the interpretation of these objects and contributing to the archaeological analysis of the semiotics of value. I examine social organisation during the emergence of the Aegean Early Bronze Age and the material sign relations of Grotta-Pelos mortuary practices to argue that the figurines developed through kinshipping practices and gifting dynamics. Grotta-Pelos schematic figurines were small, personal, and mobile objects that emerged during a period in which dispersed communities were highly dependent upon local interaction networks for social reproduction and survival, suggesting that the circulation of these figurines supported a form of distributed intersubjectivity. The schematics were readily sourced, easily shaped, attractive, mobile, and unlikely to inspire particularly competitive interactions, properties that indicate that these marble objects acted as a locus of social value generated through acts of crafting, imitation, gifting, and circulation.