Rotten ivory as raw material source in European Upper Palaeolithic

Abstract

Human manipulation on mammoth ivory is widely known from the archaeological record of the Upper Palaeolithic. The ring notching technique to break a tusk can be documented from the Early Aurignacian with continuous traditions in the Gravettian/Pavlovian. Experiments with rotten and fresh elephant ivory highlight for many Palaeolithic objects the analogy to breakage patterns in a significant decomposition process. The use of rotten ivory is especially evident in several Upper Palaeolithic art objects. These ivory plates, showing a concave inner surface caused by rotting, were the raw material for several Aurignacian figurines from the Swabian Alb (Southern Germany) and Gravettian figurines from Southern Moravia. The use of rotten ivory in a “carve and splinter technique” will be discussed for the lion man from Hohlenstein-Stadel. Strategies of deliberate maceration can reduce working costs. Procurement of rotten ivory is conceivable as a chaîne opératoire, either starting by killing the animal and caching of the tusks, or harvesting of specific weathered material from the land surface. In particular, the latter behavior gives reason to consider that raw material acquisition as “recycling”.