Early daggers in Anatolia – a necessary reappraisal

Abstract

This paper aims to give a conspectus of the earliest double-edged stabbing weapons in Anatolia, precisely identifying them as daggers through a clear functional and technological definition. Early lithic daggers from Pre-Pottery Neolithic contexts are discussed, but the main focus is on a chronological re-evaluation of metal inventories from İkiztepe in Turkey, which are officially labeled as “Bronze Age”, but are highly likely to be roughly 1,000 years older, fitting in well with the overall scheme of Anatolian -Balkan interactions in the 4th millennium BC.