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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2022

Bone flakes from traditional metapodial reduction in Postglacial deposits

Résumé

To better understand technological change during the Stone Age, various methods for the production of splinters that form the basis for the manufacture of bone tools have recently been studied. It is now generally assumed that the manner in which bone splinters were extracted from animal bones depends on the culturally rooted working tradition of the craftspeople. Unfortunately, examinations of specific bone artefacts displaying regular flake scars rarely consider how the bone blanks they were made from were exactly produced. Therefore, artefacts displaying negatives of removals that represent a specific stage in the reduction of the bone and possible subsequent discard of debitage, are of particular interest: the ‘knapped’ animal bones and the flakes deriving from them. In Mesolithic Europe, the first known bone flakes record the ‘calibration’ (preparation) of metapodials of large ungulates for further manufacture. Together with the bone flakes removed in this way, they represent the first stage using the wedge-splinter technique. The second stage consists of the splitting or grooving of the tubular bones prepared in this way into splinters, mainly used for bone point production. At sites where flakes, splinters and other diagnostic items are present and found in situ, this opens up the possibility to refit the bone fragments and to thus demonstrate a common Mesolithic bone reduction method. At sites with only one or another type of debris present in situ, it can still be possible to gain insight into this manufacturing process, as well as the function of the excavated sites where it was observed. To enable identification of this technique in preserved Mesolithic bone deposits, this paper presents some of the archaeological materials with the different preparation stages represented, as well as the results from an experiment conducted in 2017 and on the ‘calibration’ stage alone.
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Dates et versions

hal-03781838 , version 1 (20-09-2022)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03781838 , version 1

Citer

Éva David, Arturo Cueva Temprana, Justina Orłowska. Bone flakes from traditional metapodial reduction in Postglacial deposits. Ole Grøn; Hans Peeters. Hidden dimensions: Aspects of Mesolithic hunter-gatherer landscape use and non-lithic technology, Sidestone Press, pp.235-259, 2022, 978-946-426-1257. ⟨hal-03781838⟩
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