The prehistoric chert dagger from Piran, Slovenia: an underwater find from the northern Adriatic

In the summer of 2005, an underwater survey of the Slovenian Adriatic was conducted by an international group of archaeologists. A rare prehistoric chert artefact classified as a small bifacial dagger or 'fixed blade' knife was recovered near Punta Piran. The artefact has bilateral notches near the proximal end, presumably to facilitate hafting, and shows evidence of resharpening. Typologically, this find is most closely related to Northern Italian Chalcolithic and Bavarian Final Neolithic examples, and is likely an import from the northeast Italian Pre-Alpine region.