Bone technology

Mollusc shells have always attracted the attention of humans, since the Palaeolithic times they were collected and used, in their natural form or modified, for diverse items, mainly decorative ones. In prehistoric Europe, they are continually present, although the quantity of finds, their character, raw material, etc., varied in different regions and periods. Especially artefacts from Spondylus shells were well presented in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities and also attracted attention of various researchers.
A comprehensive study of mollusc shell jewellery must include raw material identification, methods of managing raw materials, manufacturing techniques, as well as context of the finds, in order to interpret its meanings and importance. In this paper will be explored and synthesized the available data on the presence of mollusc shell in the Neolithic of the central Balkans, i. e., in Starčevo and Vinča cultures – the use and distribution of certain species as raw materials, types of artefacts, context of finds, and the technological analysis – raw material choices, possible traces of manufacture and remodelling, use wear traces and reconstruction of possible mode of wearing, in order to understand better the meaning, value, importance and general role of mollusc shell ornaments.

Локалитет Бубањ спада међу најзначајније праисторијске локалитете у Србији, и свакако је један од кључних за праисторију нишког региона. Ревизиона истраживања која су спроведена од 2008. до 2014. године на преосталом делу иначе девастираног локалитета, пружила су веома значајне податке о разним аспектима живота у праисторији. Поред осталог, прикупљена је већа количина фауналних остатака, из којих је издвојено око сто осамдесет костију са траговима намерне модификације и употребе. Ови налази омогућили су прву детаљну анализу коштане индустрије у енеолитском периоду на централном Балкану, и дали су одређене податке и о коштаној технологији у старчевачком периоду. Збирка коштаних артефаката састоји се од целих, коришћених предмета, алатки и неутилитарних предмета, као и од одређене количине отпадака од производње. Збирка је анализирана са технолошке стране, тачније, анализирани су избор сировина, технологија израде, типологија, као и трагови употребе.

Originally written in 1997 this is the English translation of  a PhD Spanish manuscrit.  The intention of this work is to explain how bone was used as a raw material on the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego (Argentina). Three main lines of research are followed by the author: 1) The determination of the mechanical properties of bones used for tools; 2) the proposal and evaluation of a model derived from a Darwinian Evolutionary Theory; 3) metric and morphological analysis of Fueguian bone tools. The temporal scale chosen for this work is from the earliest arrival of humans on the island – archaeologically recorded as some 10,000 years bp, up to the 19th century. As a way of approaching this work, and in order to be able to discuss the model which will be proposed in Chapter 6, a history of Bone tool research (with a special focus on Europe, where the main trend in such studies was developed) is presented in Chapter 2. The following chapters are devoted to specifying and analyzing the way in which these factors appear in Tierra del Fuego. Firstly (Chapter 3), the mechanical properties of bone material are referred to. In Chapter 4 the environmental and geological setting of Isla Grande is presented. In Chapter 5 a synthesis of all that is known about the Fuegian populations from an archaeological point of view is presented. Chapter 6 develops the theoretical framework used for the study. A bone raw material model is discussed and methods and materials employed are discussed in Chapter 7. Chapter 8 gives results of the determination of mechanical properties of Tierra del Fuego bones. Chapter 9 gives the results of tool morphological analysis, and Chapter 10 discusses these results. Conclusions and further paths for research follow in Chapter 11.

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The paper presents the results provided by technical research focused on personal ornaments recovered from layer 11 in the Main Chamber of Denisova Cave in 2016 and 2017. Personal ornaments and bone tools from Denisova cave are one of the oldest and most expressive elements of modern human behavior, known in the Paleolithic of Northern and Central Asia. These items are considered an element of cultural identity and a chronological marker of the first Upper Paleolithic societies in Altay region. All bone tools and personal ornaments come from stratified and well-dated archaeological contexts. As a result of integrated, multidisciplinary investigations – including petrographic, experimental, use-wear and technological analysis – we reconstructed the chaîne opératoire of these non-utilitarian artefacts. The manufacture of personal ornaments involved the use of a great variety of raw materials: soft stones, tubular bones of animals and birds, teeth of mammals, mammoth ivory, as well as shells from freshwater clams. Production techniques employed for manufacturing non-utilitarian objects included several stages: selecting a raw material; obtaining a half-finished product; processing by shaping, scraping, grinding, drilling and polishing. A number of processing methods (grinding, drilling, cutting, polishing), being specific for the early Upper Paleolithic period, were utilized in this industry for producing objects from bone and ivory, as well as for soft stones working. According to their function, the ornaments from layer 11 can be classified into various types: flat and dimensional beads; holed beads; pendants with the circular grooves or with one drilled hole; plaques with two holes. A unique specimen in the collection is a fragment of ornamental ivory diadem (headband). Results of technological and use-wear analysis of personal ornaments from Paleolithic complexes of Denisova cave demonstrate communication of these objects with various functional and semantic systems. The morphology of use-wear traces indicates the use of the majority of Denisova cave beads, pendants and plaques as everyday items – personal wearable ornaments and elements of clothes decoration. The abundance, morphological and functional variability of the ornaments from layer 11 reflect an exceptional diversity of the methods used for personal ornamentation, implying the existence of preferences and traditions in the use of these objects.

The evidence of the bone and antler exploitation at Paglicci Cave (Rignano Garganico, Foggia, Southern Italy) are presented in the article. The analysis of the 104 osseous artefacts found in the Upper Palaeolithic sequence of the cave has allowed the authors to reconstruct the choices made by the prehistoric hunters both in terms of hunting and exploitation of hard animal materials for tool fabrication. Only some hunted animals bones were chosen for making the tools: deer, horse, aurochs and wild boar. A noteworthy observation concerns the lack of an interconnection between the kinds of species represented in the faunal assemblages and those used for the production of bone (and antler) tools. Even though the small number of pieces in each individual layer did not allow for statistical inferences, the authors could draw some interesting conclusions on the morpho-technological features of the artifacts, finding that some tool types appear to be linked to particular periods.

The archaeological record of the south-central continental coast of the Strait of Magellan (Brunswick Peninsula), Southernmost Patagonia, Chile, encompasses ages from 6500 years BP to present. The economy of maritime hunter-gatherers of the area was focused on obtaining coastal avifauna, marine fauna such as otariids and cetaceans, fishing, shellfish gathering and hunting of terrestrial fauna such as guanaco (Lama guanicoe) and huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus). Differential exploitation-food and technology-of two artiodactyl species among marine hunter-gatherers from Middle and Late Holocene occupations of coastal sites Rio Blanco 2, Punta Carrera 2, Estancia Bulnes 1, Punta Santa Ana 1 and Bahía Buena are discussed. Results show the absence of huemul remains during the Middle Holocene, with guanaco as the most consumed terrestrial taxa. Regarding the later records, the arrival of huemul and a regional shift in the ecological niche would have been beneficial for hunter-gatherer groups. This change is reflected by the exploitation of huemul and the replacement of guanaco in the records of the last 600 years. As for the manufacture of bone instruments, artiodactyl tibias and metapodia are the key anatomical elements present as raw material. However on the technological level there would be differences in the exploitation processes of both species.

Bone technology appeared relatively early in the Patagonian archeological record. It appears in two different contexts.
In the insular area (Magellanic channels and Tierra del Fuego) it is found in association with maritime littoral
adaptations (Orquera and Piana 1999). Here it is very abundant and it includes high variability of raw materials and
designs (Scheinsohn 1997). In continental Patagonia, on the contrary, bone tools are scarce but nevertheless recorded
in every site. As a result of this apparent scarcity, no attention was devoted to bone tools in continental Patagonia.
Here I will look for bone technology in continental Southern Patagonia to detect whether experimentation with bone
technology or early bone technology existed. To do so, I will describe bone tools from Cerro Casa de Piedra locality,
specifically from Cerro Casa de Piedra 5 and 7 sites (CCP5 and CCP 7) and from Pali Aike Volcanic Field,
specifically from Fell, Pali Aike (PA) and Cañadón Leona (CL)