The incised bone points from the Early Aurignacian of Potočka zijalka (Slovenia), hafting system or ornament?

Abstract

The Upper Palaeolithic site of Potočka zijalka, located in the Carnic Alps at 1630 m a.s.l. in northern Slovenia has yielded a conspicuous amount of fauna throughout its 8 main layers. The faunal spectrum is mainly composed of Ursus speleaus, although a few Ungulates such as Cervus elaphus and Bos/Bison have been identified. The lithic industry is very poor and only one Dufour point was discovered. In layer 7 at the front of the cave, seven combustion structures were identified.The cave also contained, in its main 8 layers, 125 hard osseous artefacts, mainly made of bone (only three elements were identified as antler and the raw material of two is unidentified). Typologically, the corpus is composed of 12 points, two roughout of spear points and 111 elements of spear points. From the faunal reconstitution, it is probable that most are made out of Ursus sp. shafts, as is also partially confirmed by the DNA analysis previously conducted. This paper aims to reconstruct the chaîne opératoire of the simple-based spear points from a technological standpoint and to propose a functional interpretation for the incised pieces that were recovered in the cave.