Updating Comments On “Paleo-Indian Bison Procurement And Butchering Patterns On The Llano Est Acado”

Abstract

The 1974 Plains Conference symposium on bison procurement and utilization and subse quent 1978 publication (Davis and Wilson, 1978) represent a major archaeological contri bution towards the interrelationships of cultural adaptation, game animals, and envi ronment. One of the symposium papers (Johnson 1974) represented the author's first, early attempts at bringing together a wealth of butchering data into a cohesive statement and interpretive view. Exchanges during the symposium helped clarify and modify the published version (Johnson 1978). Since that time, further research and experimental work has refined the author's view. Updating comments are in order on three aspects of the paper: processing points, bone butchering (expediency) tools, and group social organi zation. In the initial attempt at a regional butchering pattern (Johnson 1978), proces sing points at pelvic and pectoral girdles (processing beginning down the leg) or at metapodials (processing beginning up the leg) were presented. Butchering experience has modified this view to a selection of effective and efficient butchering units that were stripped after disassociation from* the carcass. Units formed were the skull, two forequarters (pectoral girdle), two hindquarters (pelvic girdle), thoracic region, and lumbar region. The spinal column at times was split into three parts, the cervical region forming another butchering unit. Within the pectoral girdle, the scapula and large shoulder muscles formed a part of the front leg unit. Initial cuts, blows, and slipping of a hand or bone butchering (expediency) tool around and under the scapular area freed the unit. Bone disjointing at this point is unnecessary. Similar action, but more time consuming, occurred with the pelvic griddle. Filleting the innominate around the femoral joint exposed the head and binding ligaments. Disjointing freed the hind leg unit. Leg unit processing modification arose when metapodials were selected for butcher ing (expediency) tools. After skinning but before leg unit removal, metapodials were stripped of tendons, disjointed from the unit, and made into tools. Unit removal butchering would then proceed with aid of these tools. Defleshing cut lines along metapodial anterior shafts were the probable result of tendon removal. During experimentation, cut lines on lateral and medial sides at proximal ends of metapodials resulted from periosteal removal prior to controlled breakage. Periosteal removal may explain cut lines that appear in similar places, such as at the metatarsal tuberosity, on Lubbock Lake metapodials. Wheat (1979:63, 66) notes similar cut line placement on proximal ends of metapodials from Jurgens, many of which had been used as tools or were the debris left from manufacture. Bone butchering tools are a recently recog nized phenomenon. Early attempts at recog nition processes label them unstylized (Frison 1970; Johnson 1975) or simply bone tools (Greiser 1977; Johnson 1978). Assemblages across the Plains (Frison 1977; Greiser 1977; Johnson 1977; Wheat 1977) now demonstrate that specific technological procedures were employed producing a limited variety of results. Interpretive potential is developing as experimentation proceeds and other assem blages are analyzed (Frison 1974, 1978; Wheat 1979; Bonnichsen in press). The expediency concept now applied to these tools (Johnson 1976, 1977) is defined within a technological, not functional, frame work. Expediency tools were made quickly