Apples and oranges again: comment on ‘Conceptual premises in experimental design and their bearing on the use of analogy: an example from experiments on cut marks’

Abstract

Domínguez-Rodrigo (2008) recently evaluated several studies of butchery experiments designed to interpret cut-mark patterns on fossil bones from FLK Zinj. He critiques my dissertation work, yet I neither conducted butchery experiments nor attempted to interpret cut marks at FLK Zinj. His hypothesis that the presence of cut marks on upper or ‘meaty’ limb elements (and especially midshafts of these meaty limb elements) is a zooarchaeological signal of hominin early access to carcasses is based in part on observations of flesh yield on felid kills. My research is relevant because my observations increase the range of variation in flesh yield of abandoned felid kills and document variability in intra-limb patterns of flesh distribution. Domínguez-Rodrigo's approach to Early Pleistocene hominin carcass acquisition and/or processing strategies must take this variability into account.