%0 Book Section %T Disc-rings made from Alpine rocks, in the social imagination of Neolithic communities %A Pétrequin, P; Cassen, S; Errera, M; Pailler, Yves; Pétrequin, A-M; Prodéo, F; Sheridan, J A %C Piacenza, Italy %8 2020-02-19 %E Maffi, M; Bronzoni, L; Mazzieri, P; %I Archeotravo Cooperativa Sociale. Museo Civico Archeologico di Travo %J %7 %P %@ 9788894471106 %U http://nms.ac.uk/collections-research/collections-departments/scottish-history-and-archaeology/dr-alison-sheridan/; https://www.academia.edu/41304752/PETREQUIN_P._CASSEN_S._et_al._2019.-_Disc-rings_made_from_Alpine_rocks_in_the_social_imagination_of_Neolithic_communities_in_..._le_quistioni_nostre_paletnologiche_più_importanti..._Atti_del_convegno_di_studi_in_onore_di_Maria_Bernabo_Brea_137-150 %X In France, disc-rings of Alpine jades and of serpentinite circulated over very long distances, as far as the Channel Islands and the coast of Brittany. The authors present a typochronological study for each rock type, along with distribution maps and a general social interpretation. Two origins are identified, of which the earliest lies in the high Alps, where regularly-shaped ring-discs were made from at least as early as 5300 BC. Then, at the beginning of the fifth millennium, irregularly-shaped disc-rings were made in Alsace, using cobbles gathered from the bed of the upper Rhine. Just as with the long Bégude-type adze-heads of Alpine jades, the circulation of the regular-shaped Alpine disc-rings was driven by social imagination, which linked them to the world of myths – as shown in the representations carved into monumental standing stones and rock surfaces during the first half of the fifth millennium. From a chronological point of view, the schist disc-rings of the Blicquy-Villeneuve-Saint-Germain culture (in common with some other disc-rings, including the large examples of west-central France) appear to conform to the ideological system that had been responsible for the production of Alpine disc-rings, although they were accorded a lesser value. In order to explain the massive production of these schist discrings over a relatively short period, of around three centuries, the authors propose that they were used as a kind of quasi-money, whose value would have been based on the integration of certain specific examples within the mythology system. Such a system of compensation payments using these schist disc-rings subsequently collapsed when the number of such rings in circulation grew too great, thereby leading to their depreciation in social value. %[ 2024-03-29 %9 Book chapter %~ Hyku %W National Museums Scotland