The meaning of ceraunia: archaeology, natural history and the interpretation of prehistoric stone artefacts in the eighteenth century

Abstract

Historians of archaeology have noted that prehistoric stone artefacts were first identified as such during the seventeenth century, and a great deal has been written about the formulation of the idea of a Stone Age in the nineteenth century. Much less attention has been devoted to the study of prehistoric artefacts during the eighteenth century. Yet it was during this time that researchers first began systematically to collect, classify and interpret the cultural and historical meaning of these objects as archaeological specimens rather than geological specimens. These investigations were conducted within the broader context of eighteenth-century antiquarianism and natural history. As a result, they offer an opportunity to trace the interrelationships that existed between the natural sciences and the science of prehistoric archaeology, which demonstrates that geological theories of the history of the earth, ethnographic observations of ‘savage peoples’ and natural history museums all played important roles in the interpretation of prehistoric stone implements during the eighteenth century.

Acheulean Handaxes in Medieval France: An Earlier ‘Modern’ Social History for Palaeolithic Bifaces

“…This strikes us as one of the most interesting areas of revision and elaboration revealed by the recent technical analysis to which the panel was subjected (Kemperdick 2018, 143-9). Did Fouquet understand the object he depicted to have been a curious natural phenomenon, potentially a ceraunia (Goodrum 2002;King 1867), or a part of the natural world modified by human hands, or, in a religious vein (Buettner 2022;Honour & Fleming 1982;Robertson & Hutton 2021), a supernatural creation? The former and latter are not mutually exclusive.…”

“…From these texts, it is widely stated that prior to the Enlightenment handaxes were often considered to be of natural origin and were thought to have been ‘shot from the clouds’ when lightning struck the ground (King 1867, 77). Sixteenth-century natural historians across Europe noted the presence of ‘ceraunia’ or ‘thunderstones’, which were ‘curiously shaped stone objects … treated as a naturally occurring geological phenomenon’ formed through lightning strikes (Goodrum 2002, 257). This explanation for the presence of handaxes has a long history, with Turner and Wymer (1987) suggesting 44 Roman-deposited Palaeolithic handaxes from Witham, UK, to have been a possible tribute to Jupiter, a Roman god often depicted wielding thunderbolts.…”

“…Ceraunia were a broad category of objects that not only included handaxes, but also included other prehistoric implements of both flaked and ground origin, and fossilized sea urchins (Goodrum 2008; King 1867). Descriptions of some ceraunia are, however, undeniable in their resemblance to handaxes and other later bifacial tools, being ‘a heterogeneous category of stones of varying color that are shaped like pyramids, wedges, hammers, spheres, or are sometimes triangular’ (Goodrum 2002, 488). It is reported that Mercati (1541–1593) was the first to note similarities in the form of ceraunia and lithic arrowheads being brought back from the Americas (Accordi 1980).…”

Prolegomenon to a history of paleoanthropology: The study of human origins as a scientific enterprise. Part 2. Eighteenth to the twentieth century

“…Thus, the presence of stone artifacts in Europe challenged most people's conception of human history and required a rethinking of early human culture. 3 Some archeologists, such as Bernard de Montfaucon (1655-1741) 4 in France and Charles Lyttelton (1714 -1768) 5 in England, even suggested that these artifacts were the earliest evidence of humans on earth and might be extremely old. However, it is important to note that this still meant a human history of only a few thousand years.…”

Chipped stone industries from western Macedonia, Greece

“…Chipped stone tools were for a long time considered as the result of natural processes. Until the 16 th and 17 th centuries, lithic artefacts were characterized as thunderbolts, shaped by the lightning struck, with healing or talismanic powers (Fotiadis 2016, 93;Goodrum 2002). It was during the Renaissance that the first recognition of stone tools as the creation of man was stated by Mercati, a curator of the Vatican collections (Kourtessi-Philippakis 2014b, 113).…”