Bodily boundaries transgressed: corporal alteration through ornamentation in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic at Boncuklu Tarla, Turkiye

Lack of contextual evidence for the use of small personal ornaments means that much of our understanding of ornamentation traditions within archaeological cultures is reconstructed from ethnographic comparisons. New in situ finds from the areas around the ears and mouth in burials at Boncuklu Tarla, a Neolithic settlement in Turkiye, add a novel dimension to the interpretation of stone 'tokens' or 'plugs'. This article presents a new typology for these artefacts and argues for their use as ear ornaments or labrets in a practice involving significant and lasting corporal alteration. Keywords: South-west Asia, Neolithic, body augmentation, perforation, ornamentation, labret
Introduction Small, disc or nail-like objects similar to modern and ethnographic examples of labrets--worn through piercings beneath the lower lip--are well documented in the material culture of Neolithic South-west Asia [...]