More succinctly: Bronze age daggers were used as ordinary kitchen knives.
Except then it sounds like it comes out of the no-duh institute of obvious studies.
Except then it sounds like it comes out of the no-duh institute of obvious studies.
The study has included both the analysis of the residues from the surface of the ancient daggers and the making of bronze replicas, which have been tested successfully as butcher knives, so the previously accepted opinion about their purpose has been proven to be wrong.
But at time why would something new and not useful be a status item? And if it was useful, but rare surely it will get lot of use? Good working cutting tools is extremely useful thing.
A thing can be an everyday tool AND a status symbol. But in this case, WHEN in the bronze age has a lot of bearing. Early on, yeah copper-alloy objects were relatively rare and expensive, but later as more mining put a LOT of copper alloy into trade and those trade networks became more extensive, they were less so, and thus you could have finds like I think one in England where EVERY HOUSE had copper and bronze implements.
The Pragatto finds in the article come from relatively late in the Bronze Age, so what they answer is AT THIS RELATIVELY LATE DATE, bronze daggers were common enough, even though still expensive and rare, to be used as everyday implements of slaughter rather than being strictly ornamental heirlooms.