LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

Identifying the animal species used to manufacture bone arrowheads in South Africa

Photo from archive.org

The identification to species of completely worked bone tools is impossible using standard skeletal morphological markers. Worked bone studies therefore have focused on questions about manufacture and use, rather than… Click to show full abstract

The identification to species of completely worked bone tools is impossible using standard skeletal morphological markers. Worked bone studies therefore have focused on questions about manufacture and use, rather than on issues of raw material selection strategies. Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) is a technique that uses unique collagen biomarkers to fingerprint and identify species of origin from small amounts of bone or ivory. We present the first ZooMS analysis of bone arrowheads from southern Africa. Our findings show that a narrower selection of species was selected for tool manufacture than for food, while, at some sites, certain antelope species were selected for tools that are not present in the unmodified faunal remains. We examine what this selectivity might suggest about mechanical suitability and symbolic associations of the species chosen to make tools. We conclude that mechanical suitability was probably of primary concern and that probable symbolic connotations that were attached to certain species did not translate to the technological sphere to the same extent that they did in other parts of the world.

Keywords: identifying animal; manufacture; species used; animal species; bone; bone arrowheads

Journal Title: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences
Year Published: 2018

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.