Hearth-side bone assemblages within the 27 ka BP Krems-Wachtberg settlement: Fired ribs and the mammoth bone-grease hypothesis

Abstract

Besides two human infant burials, the most important evident feature of the recent excavations at the Gravettian (Pavlovian) base camp site Krems-Wachtberg is a multi-phased hearth with a diameter of almost 1.5 m. The feature is part of a compacted living floor which probably represents the interior of a dwelling. The hearth contains charcoal, mostly burned small bone fragments, lithic artefacts in a matrix of ashy sediment and fire-modified loess. Numerous mammoth limb bone flakes and the overall extensively fractured bone assemblages mainly from Mammuthus, Equus, Rangifer and Capra, including a considerable portion of cancellous bone, pose the question whether bone-grease manufacture could have been a possible cause of these patterns. The analysis of faunal remains addresses, besides the most accurate determinations of species and skeletal position, fragment size-class proportions, green-bone fracture frequency, the intensity of combustion and spatial distribution patterns. While the most frequent species within the living floor is woolly mammoth, followed by wild horse, reindeer and ibex, ungulate and mammoth bone counts are more balanced in the assemblages of the three distinct hearth phases. A tendency toward more importance of the ungulates and more intense fragmentation can be observed in the last phase. The bones which can be attributed to wild horse show a remarkably different spatial distribution than the mammoth remains. Generally the patterns suggest that a large part of the bones within the hearth is burned waste, partly from fireside consumption, for instance of rib meat. In contrast, abundance and concentration of green-fractured mammoth and ungulate limb bones around the hearth is interpreted as primary refuse from marrow procurement. Strategies to counter resource fluctuations, nutritional stress, differential use and treatment of animal tissue including the fat within the bones are considered the most important issues for understanding Gravettian settlement patterns.