Early Bronze Age Stone Tools and Agricultural Innovations
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The intensification of agricultural production in the Fertile Cresent during the Early Bronze Age (EBA) is reflected in two farming tools: Canaanean blades, which were thinner than Neolithic blades; and the threshing sledge, into which some of these blades were inserted. In northern Mesopotamia, most Canaanean blades were long and wide, made by pressure using a lever and copper point, although some were narrower and produced by indirect percussion or by pressure with a crutch. In the Levant, however, although some wide examples have been recovered, narrow forms predominated. Controlled experiments have revealed that microwear on blade segments used in sledge inserts is different from microwear on segments used as sickles. This paper analyses samples of Canaanean blades and blade segments from Tell ʿAtij in northern Mesopotamia and Ein Zippori in the Levant to examine (1) whether wider and narrower Canaanean blade segments were used for different tasks, (2) whether some Canaanean blade segments were designed specifically to be inserted into sickle handles and used for harvesting and (3) whether sickle inserts were recycled and used in threshing sledges. We also discuss how production and use of Canaanean blades is related to EBA agricultural intensification.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".