RT Journal Article
T1 Owl‑like plaques of the Copper Age and the involvement of children
A1 Negro, Juan José
A1 Blanco, Guillermo
A1 Rodríguez Rodríguez, Eduardo José
A1 Díaz Núñez de Arenas, Víctor M.
AB In the Copper Age, slate engraved plaques were produced massively in the southwestern corner of theIberian Peninsula. Researchers have speculated about the function of these palm-sized stone objectsfor more than a century, although most have favored the idea that they represented goddesses,and served ritual purposes. The plaques are engraved with different designs of varying complexity.In some of them, the ones sporting two large frontal eyes, we clearly see owls modelled after twospecies present in the area: the little owl (Athene noctua), and the long-eared owl (Asio otus). Thesetwo species, living in semi-open habitats, were possibly the most abundant owls around the humansettlements and surrounding cultivated fields of the Chalcolithic period. People must have been awareof the owl presence and possibly interacted with them. Why owls but no other animals have been themodels may relate to the fact they are the most anthropomorphic of all animals, with large frontallyplacedeyes in their enormous heads. In the iconography, owls are systematically represented, eventoday, with their two eyes staring at the observer, as opposed to the lateral view used for any otheranimal. Additionally, slate is one of the commonest surface rocks in southwestern Iberia, and itprovides a blank canvas for engraving lines using pointed tools made of flint, quartz or copper. Theway slates exfoliate makes easy to craft owl-looking plaques. To silhouette animals other than owls ina recognizable way would request extra carving abilities and specific tools. Plaque manufacture anddesign were simple and did not demand high skills nor intensive labor as demonstrated in replicationexperiments. Owl engravings could have been executed by youngsters, as they resemble owls paintedtoday by elementary school students. This also suggests that schematic drawings are universal andtimeless. We propose that the owl-like slate plaques are the remains of a set of objects used in bothplayful activities and in ritual ceremonies. The actual engraving of the plaques may have been part ofthe game. Owlish slate plaques were often perforated twice at the top. We interpret this as insertionpoints for actual bird feathers added to the plaques, right at the place where tufts emerge in live owls.The frontier among play and ritual is diffuse in liminal societies and there is no contradiction in playingwith animal-like toys and, at some point, using them as offerings as part of community rituals related,for instance, to the colossal megalithic tombs so characteristic of the Copper Age.
PB Nature Research
SN 2045-2322 (electrónico)
YR 2022
FD 2022
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/22200
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/22200
LA eng
NO Negro, J.J., Blanco, G., Rodríguez-Rodríguez, E. et al. Owl-like plaques of the Copper Age and the involvement of children. Sci Rep 12, 19227 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23530-0
NO We are thankful to Ruth Maicas, of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid for advice and for photographsused in Fig. 4. We are also indebted to Guillermo Kurtz, Director of Museo Arqueológico Provincial de Badajozfor providing several photographs. We thank the students and teachers of the primary schools CEIP Mosaico, ofSantiponce (Sevilla), and CEIP San José, of Calamonte (Badajoz), for providing owl drawings on paper.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 30 may 2026