Bone Tools Research Articles

ЖЕРТВЕННЫЕ КОМПЛЕКСЫУСТЬ-ВАГИЛЬСКОГО ХОЛМА НА РЕКЕ ТАВДЕ (ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ РАСКОПОК 1970 ГОДА)

Ust-Vagilsky Hill is an unusual cult site in the form of a hill with a diameter of about 50 m and a height of up to 6 m is located in the upper reaches of the Tavda river (Garinsky district of the Sverdlovsk region). All epochs from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages are represented on the hill. Each epoch is characterized by its own features. For the Mesolithic, this is a geometric microlith and an arrowhead on a narrow plate. Ceramic vessels with anthropomorphic images stuck on their corollas were widely used in the Neolithic era. The Neolithic is also characterized by large nucleus and tools on wide (1.5–2.5 cm) plates of light gray weakly siliceous rock. The Eneolithic is represented by ceramic vessels decorated with a variety of geometric patterns from the impressions of a comb stamp, as well as polished arrowheads typical of this era, pendants made of dark red pyrophyllite slate, and the pommel of a mace. The transition period from late Bronze to Early Iron is characterized by ceramics of the Vagil type and remnants of metallurgical production in the form of pieces of slag, baked and crusted clay, and fragments of ceramics. This complex includes ornamental fishing sinkers, individual stone products and a clay stamp, which gives prints of a single-row fine-toothed wave. Among them are arrowheads in the form of wide isosceles triangles and scrapers, from the back and from the abdomen treated with flat retouching. The epoch of the Middle Ages is represented by ceramics of the Zelenogorsk type, an iron knife and bone tools (a dagger, a spearhead, arrowheads and points). The sacrificial character of the complexes is emphasized by the presence of ochre and non-utilitarian products: the pommel of a mace, pendants made of pyrophyllite slate, and individual clay products.

Editors’ Note

Editors’ Note Francis Allard, Bérénice Bellina-Pryce, Julie Field, and Cristina Cobo Castillo Welcome to the latest issue of Asian Perspectives. As always, the journal remains committed to publishing high-quality research articles whose chronological and regional scope reflects its broad readership across East, South, and Southeast Asia and the Pacific region. You will note that several articles in this issue focus on the identification and interpretation of specific materials and technologies. The topics covered by four of the articles include rock art in early Mongolia, bone tools in prehistoric eastern China, metallurgy at the Han empire’s southern periphery, and plant remains and parasite microfossils in pre-contact New Zealand. A fifth article relies on settlement pattern and demographic data from Neolithic and Bronze Age China to draw insightful comparisons between the developmental trajectories of two distant regions. Also included in this issue are three book reviews: one on landscape, nature and historical imagination on the Indian subcontinent (by Pratik Chakrabarti, reviewed by John Lukacs), one on animal classification systems in ancient China (by Ningning Dong, reviewed by You Yue), and a third on the site of Non Ban Jak in Thailand (edited by C.F.W. Higham and A. Kijngam, reviewed by Carmen Sarjeant). We take this opportunity to welcome Cristina Castillo as the journal’s new Book Review Editor (contact apjabre@hawaii.edu) and thank Michèle Demandt for serving as the first editor dedicated to this important section of the journal. Michèle streamlined many of the editorial procedures for the book reviews. We wish her the best in all her future professional and personal endeavors. As mentioned in the previous issue, the Editors and University of Hawai‘i Press recognize the pressures faced by scholars to publish their manuscripts in the shortest time possible. As a way to address this, the journal has begun making “Early Release Articles” (ERAs) available on Project MUSE while manuscripts are still in press. Authors can now expect to see their manuscripts published as (uncopyedited) preprints within a few months of full acceptance instead of having to wait six to nine months for publication of the entire print issue. As a final note, the Editors look forward to meeting many of you at annual international and regional conferences, as well as smaller seminars, where we will be happy to discuss with interested scholars the possibility of publishing their research in Asian Perspectives. Meanwhile, feel free to contact the Editors at apjaeds@hawaii.edu with any inquiries regarding the requirements and timing of the editorial process. [End Page 219] Copyright © 2023 University of Hawai‘i Press

History of surgical sutures

The earliest devices for suturing were 60,000-year-old bone needles for stitching together animal hides.

History of surgical sutures

The earliest devices for suturing were 60,000-year-old bone needles for stitching together animal hides.

Inspecting human evolution from a cave. Late Neanderthals and early sapiens at Grotta di Fumane: present state and outlook.

Of the many critical phases of human evolution, one of the most investigated is the transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic with the pivotal bio-cultural substitution of Neanderthals by Homo sapiens in Western Eurasia. The complexity of this over ten thousands years phase raises from the ensemble of evidence ascribed to the diverse adaptations expressed by Neanderthals and the first representatives of our species. In countless archaeological records Neanderthals left clear traces of a cultural variability dotted with innovations in the technology of stone and bone tools, alongside with manifestations in the range of the symbolic sphere. Together with other aspects of daily life, this evidence contributes shedding light on the cognitive aptitudes of those hominins and reassessing gaps in Pleistocene human diversities. Among archaeological contexts, the cave of Fumane in the Monti Lessini (Veneto Pre-Alps, northeastern Italy) is a key site. It is positioned along the potential trajectory of hominins moving into southern Europe from eastern and southeastern regions and includes a finely layered sedimentary sequence with cultural layers ascribed to the Mousterian, Uluzzian, Aurignacian and Gravettian. The ensemble constitutes one of the most complete, detailed and dated continental stratigraphic series from a segment of the late Pleistocene between 50 and 30 ka cal BP in a cave context of Southern Europe. Assessments based on sedimentological and palaeontological record provide indicators for framing Neanderthals in their respective ecological contexts since the late Middle Pleistocene until their demise during MIS3. On-going research is producing data ascribable to the human ecological relations and the interaction with specific natural resources, thus contributing to shed light on the complexity of Neanderthal behavior. Thanks to the high-resolution archaeological record of the earliest appearances of Homo sapiens, Fumane also provides clues to compare life, subsistence, and cultures between these Pleistocene hominins for comprehensive reasonings on our unicity.

Развитие культуры денисовского человека на Алтае

The cultural and chronological stratum of the Pleistocene deposits in Denisova Cave, Altai, is the most complete and lengthy in North and Central Asia today. The comprehensive research of the stone and bone industries in the Paleolithic cave layers helped to trace the process of local development of the most antique Altai’s people, who lived 300,000 to 30,000 years ago. The layer-by-layer analysis of stone artifacts helped to identify the stages of material culture of the-then cave dwellers. The most ancient archaeological site in the bottom of the Pleistocene stratum formed ca. 300,000-150,000 years ago is classified as Early Middle Paleolithic. The subsequent development of the Middle Paleolithic traditions is reflected by the discoveries from the layers that formed 150,000-50,000 years ago. According to archaeological, paleoanthropological and paleogenetic data, the development of the Middle Paleolithic site of the cave is associated mostly with the Denisovans. The deposits of the Early Upper Paleolithic uncovered bone remains of only that population. Bone needles with eyes, sets of personal jewelry and symbolic artifacts in the cultural and chronological stratum of Denisova Cave dating back to the period 50,000 years ago all testify that one of the earliest Upper Paleolithic cultures in Eurasia was formed in Altai.

Hunter-gatherers in labyrinth karst: An Early Holocene record from Gunung Sewu, Java

Gua Mandung is an inland prehistoric site in Gunung Sewu karst area of central Java, Indonesia. This area is rich in valleys and corridors which make up Gunung Sewu's distinct labyrinth-like landscape. For Java, Gunung Sewu is known to have a relatively harsh environment with limited access to permanent water sources and a short wet season. However, here we report evidence of occupation at the site of Gua Mandung since at least 11,073 cal BP. An abundance of terrestrial fauna remains alongside numerous bone tools with differing functionalities suggests that these early cave dwellers applied well-developed subsistence strategies to maximise the available resources. Gua Mandung records continuous exploitation of small to large terrestrial fauna including monkeys, porcupine, deer, pig, cattle, rat, snake, and monitor lizard. The site's proximity to nearby lakes and a ∼ 5 km walk to the coast also provided Gua Mandung's early inhabitants with secondary aquatic resources such as fish, freshwater shells, marine shells, barnacles, crab, and sea urchin. Based on our findings from the Gua Mandung excavation, and in comparison with surrounding archaeological sites, coastal resource exploitation appears to have been a common, albeit more minor, subsistence strategy employed by the early inland communities of the Gunung Sewu karst area.

To the Question of the Purpose of Some Types of Bone Products from Medieval Sites of the Gis-Urals and Trans-Urals: to the Formulation of the Problem

The article is devoted to the analysis of one category of bone products discovered during archaeological research at settlement complexes of the XII–XIV centuries of the Tobol and Irtysh Rivers Basin (Western Siberia, Trans-Urals). The artifacts are small bone cases with a hole for hanging, inside of them there was one bone tool with a sharpened working edge, analogies of which are found on medieval sites of the Permian Gis-Urals, attributed by researchers as needles / punctures located in needle cases. However, the morphological and structural characteristics of these artifacts, in our opinion, do not correspond to the functions attributed to them. The purpose of the study is to introduce into scientific circulation and attribution of the actual purpose of paired bone products found on medieval sites of the Tobolo–Irtysh region. Based on the purpose of the study, the following tasks were put forward: morphological description of products; search for analogies to objects on archaeological sites of adjacent territories; acquaintance with the history of the study of similar artifacts. To solve the tasks set in the work, traditional research methods are used for historical science: comparative-historical, comparative-typological, formal-stylistic, the method of analogies. The morphological analysis of the finds both from the Tobol-Irtysh region and from the sites of the Gis-Urals, coupled with the analysis of a complex of items for the care of appearance originating from the territory of Eurasia, made it possible to revise the point of view widespread in scientific circles on the functional purpose of the so-called bone "needle cases" from tubular bones of small animals and "needles / punctures" that were inside. In the course of the study, the items found in the cultural layer of the settlement sites of the Tobol-Irtysh region were classified as items for caring for the appearance - toothpicks placed in a case.

New evidence of Neolithic industries from the West Garo Hills, northeastern India

Abstract This paper is based on the field investigations conducted in the West Garo Hills of northeastern India. The work presents a brief report on the Neolithic manufacturing sites of the West Garo Hills. It addresses the various issues of lithic sequence, typological classifications, lithic technology, settlement pattern and site distribution pattern of the known sites and newly discovered sites in the West Garo Hills. Large clusters of Neolithic manufacturing sites have been located on the hilltops and hillslopes close to present-day rivers, streams, natural springs, water channels and modern Garo community habitats. Dolerite raw materials were mostly preferred for fashioning the artefacts, and manufacturing units are found close to the dyke basalt rock sources. Findings of habitation deposits or pottery are very sparse; however, evidence of plant and animal domestication, burial, bone tools, and metal use pose new hypotheses on their use owing to poor preservation. The Palaeolithic evidence and the region's transition to early farming cultures remain vague.

Taphonomic and technological analyses of Lower Palaeolithic bone tools from Clacton-on-Sea, UK

The exceptional survival of Middle Pleistocene wooden spears at Schöningen (Germany) and Clacton-on-Sea (UK) provides tantalizing evidence for the widespread use of organic raw materials by early humans. At Clacton, less well-known organic artefacts include modified bones that were identified by the Abbé Henri Breuil in the 1920s. Some of these pieces were described and figured by Hazzledine Warren in his classic 1951 paper on the flint industry from the Clacton Channel, but they have been either overlooked in subsequent studies or dismissed as the product of natural damage. We provide the first detailed analysis of two Clactonian bone tools found by Warren and a previously unrecognized example recovered in 1934 during excavations directed by Mary Leakey. Microscopic examination of percussion damage suggests the bones were used as knapping hammers to shape or resharpen flake tools. Early Palaeolithic bone tools are exceedingly rare, and the Clacton examples are the earliest known organic knapping hammers associated with a core-and-flake (Mode 1) lithic technology. The use of soft hammers for knapping challenges the consensus that Clactonian flintknapping was undertaken solely with hard hammerstones, thus removing a major technological and behavioural difference used to distinguish the Clactonian from late Acheulean handaxe (Mode 2) industries.

Bone-related behaviours of captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) during two excavating experiments

After stone tools, bone tools are the most abundant artefact type in the Early Pleistocene archaeological record. That said, they are still relatively scarce, which limits our understanding of the behaviours that led to their production and use. Observations of extant primates constitute a unique source of behavioural data with which to construct hypotheses about the technological forms and repertoires exhibited by our hominin ancestors. We conducted two different experiments to investigate the behavioural responses of two groups of captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes; n = 33 and n = 9) to disarticulated, defleshed, ungulate bones while participating in a foraging task aimed at eliciting excavating behaviour. Each chimpanzee group was provided with bone specimens with different characteristics, and the two groups differed in their respective experience levels with excavating plant tools. We found that several individuals from the inexperienced group used the provided bones as tools during the task. In contrast, none of the individuals from the experienced group used bones as excavating tools, but instead continued using plant tools. These chimpanzees also performed non-excavating bone behaviours such as percussion and tool-assisted extraction of organic material from the medullary cavity. Our findings serve as a proof-of-concept that chimpanzees can be used to investigate spontaneous bone tool behaviours such as bone-assisted excavation. Furthermore, our results raise interesting questions regarding the role that bone characteristics, as well as previous tool-assisted excavating experience with other raw materials, might have in the expression of bone tool-assisted excavation.

From Forests to the Coast - Multidisciplinary Investigation of Human Adaptations at the Mini-athiliya Shell Midden, Sri Lanka

Over the last three decades, Sri Lanka has risen to international prominence as a key area for exploring past forager adaptations. Much of this discussion has focused on the lowland rainforests of the Wet Zone of the island, and their preservation of the earliest fossils of our species, bone tools, and microlithic technologies in the region ca. 45,000 years ago. It has been recognized that the northern and southern coasts of Sri Lanka represent crucial locales for studying human occupation and adaptation through the Pleistocene and Holocene. Here, we revisit the important shell midden site of Mini-athiliya (dating to ca. 4,000 cal. years BP), on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, which has yielded human remains alongside microlithic stone tools and animal remains. We present a comparative analysis of body size variation of the human remains belonging to the HMA 6 adult skeleton from Mini-athiliya with a wider database of foragers to investigate local adaptations. We also apply stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis to the tooth enamel of four other individuals documented at Mini-athiliya in order to determine their dietary reliance on forest, grassland, or coastal resources. Together, our results highlight that, rather than a clear distinction between earlier forest adaptations and later coastal specialisation, the Mini-athiliya individuals provide evidence for a plastic spectrum of ecological adaptation. We argue for continued research on how human populations in different parts of the island interacted and adapted to its diverse tropical settings across space and time.

Neolithic bone tool technology and typology from the region of four lakes, Western Macedonia, Greece

In the last twenty years the Archaeological Service of Florina has conducted extensive surface surveys and large-scale excavations in the Prefecture of Florina, situated in Northwestern Greece. This research has identified the establishment of a great number of prehistoric settlements in the area of the four lakes (Lake Chimaditis, Lake Zazari, Lake Vegoritida and Lake Petron) that date back from the Greek Early Neolithic (6700/6500-5800/5600 BC) to the Greek Late Bronze Age (1700/1500-1100 BC). One of the extended settlements of the region is the former lakeside settlement Anarghiri IXb which was situated on the north-eastern shore of Lake Chimaditis and was inhabited almost uninterruptedly from the middle of the 6th millennium BC to the end of the 5th millennium BC. Extensive investigation so far yielded thousands of wooden piles, thousands of figurines, chipped stone tools as well as antler and osseous artifacts. The bone tool assemblage from the Neolithic layers of the settlement forms one of the numerous assemblages in Greece and the Balkans. The present study of the material seeks to assess the raw material preferences, the typology and the technology of the osseous tools which seem to have played a significant role in the everyday activities inside and outside of the settlement.

Was it ground? A closer look at various prehistoric bone grinding techniques – An experimental and traceological study

This article presents the results of an experimental program, and traceological analyses of bone tools that were ground using various stone materials. Using multifaceted characterisation and classification of traces, we show that distinctive micro-wear patterns (e.g., striations, polish) are associated with different grinding techniques and corresponding stone materials. At the same time, we underline that it is not possible to distinguish between the different stone materials used during the grinding process. The results of our study highlight the potential for microscopic wear analysis in determining the origin of micro-wear traces on archaeological bone tools.

Archaeological Evidence from the Kuragala Site, Sri Lanka

The Kuragala archaeological site is located in the Balangoda division of the Ratnapura district, southwestern Sri Lanka. This paper summarises archaeological investigations carried out in and around Kuragala indicating that human habitation in the region extended beyond 15,000 years into the past. Chronometric dating of the site and archaeological evidence show that Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene modern humans who followed a hunting and gathering subsistence pattern lived in this region. Archaeological finds and data from the Kuragala excavation include microlithic tools, bone tools, processed animal bones and beads, which indicate behavioural modernity among the inhabitants. This paper also discusses aspects of early historic occupation of the site based on the existence of human-modified drip-ledge caves and stone inscriptions. (Sinhala Article)

Sedimentary ancient DNA metabarcoding as a tool for assessing prehistoric plant use at the Upper Paleolithic cave site Aghitu-3, Armenia

Current knowledge about Paleolithic human plant use is limited by the rare survival of identifiable plant remains as well as the availability of methods for plant detection and identification. By analyzing DNA preserved in cave sediments, we can identify organisms in the absence of any visible remains, opening up new ways to study details of past human behavior, including plant use. Aghitu-3 Cave contains a 15,000-yearlong record (from ∼39,000 to 24,000 cal BP) of Upper Paleolithic human settlement and environmental variability in the Armenian Highlands. Finds from this cave include stone artifacts, faunal remains, bone tools, shell beads, charcoal, and pollen, among others. We applied sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) metabarcoding to the Aghitu-3 sedimentary sequence and combined this with pollen data to obtain a temporal reconstruction of plant assemblages. Our results reveal a stratification of plant abundance and diversity where sedaDNA reflects periods of human occupation, showing higher diversity in layers with increased human activity. Low pollen concentrations combined with high sedaDNA abundance indicate plant remains may have been brought into the cave by animals or humans during the deposition of the lower two archaeological horizons. Most of the recovered plants are reported to be useful for food, flavor, medicine, and/or technical purposes, demonstrating the potential of the environment around Aghitu-3 Cave to support humans during the Upper Paleolithic. Moreover, we identified several specific plant taxa that strengthen previous findings about Upper Paleolithic plant use in this region (i.e., for medicine and the manufacturing and dyeing of textiles). This study represents the first application of plant sedaDNA analysis of cave sediments for the investigation of potential plant use by prehistoric humans.

Technological and functional analysis of 80–60 ka bone wedges from Sibudu (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

Fully shaped, morphologically standardized bone tools are generally considered reliable indicators of the emergence of modern behavior. We report the discovery of 23 double-beveled bone tools from ~ 80,000–60,000-year-old archaeological layers at Sibudu Cave in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We analyzed the texture of use-wear on the archaeological bone tools, and on bone tool replicas experimentally used in debarking trees, processing rabbit pelts with and without an ochre compound, digging in sediment in and outside a cave, and on ethnographic artefacts. Debarking trees and digging in humus-rich soil produce use-wear patterns closely matching those observed on most Sibudu tools. This tool type is associated with three different Middle Stone Age cultural traditions at Sibudu that span 20,000 years, yet they are absent at contemporaneous sites. Our results support a scenario in which some southern African early modern human groups developed and locally maintained specific, highly standardized cultural traits while sharing others at a sub-continental scale. We demonstrate that technological and texture analyses are effective means by which to infer past behaviors and assess the significance of prehistoric cultural innovations.

Scales of Analysis: the Usage of Appropriate Magnification in Use-Wear Studies

The interpretative potential of microscopic use-wear polishes is a factor of the scale of analysis. Observational surface area decreases in inverse proportion to magnification. In this paper I present the results of polishes on bone tools that have developed from fricative contact with nine different materials. Microwear polish is viewed at five different magnifications. I show that 50x―200x magnification, or observational areas of 0.4―2.0 mm2, is the most appropriate scale of analysis of use-wear polishes regardless of whether one is conducting morphological identifications or relying on surface texture analysis software. The images presented here are meant to serve as an online reference collection to allow use-wear analysts to visualise how polish appearances change at different levels of magnification.

Accessing the ephemeral using multiscale 3D microscopy of bone microwear

Ancient people used perishable resources much as people do today. Such materials do not preserve well in the archaeological record, and so there are types of items that would have been made from animal skins or vegetal matter like clothing, footwear, and containers that are not present in many assemblages. Direct evidence for such items is often lacking, but indirect evidence in the form of microwear traces can be found on more durable materials, such as bone tools, that interacted with these less permanent items prior to deposition. In this study, 3D microscopic methods are applied to quantitatively evaluate traces from three perishable materials (semi-fresh animal skin, processed split leather, and dry bark) on experimental bone tools. Bones were scanned on two objectives (20x and 100x) with a confocal disc-scanning microscope and evaluated using 3D surface texture parameters. Quantitative measurements of the bone surfaces varied at the different scales, but material wear patterns were evident and indicative of the differences in properties of the three materials. This study indicates that the use of 3D microscopic methods on bone tools at multiple scales is useful for understanding how contact with perishable materials affects bone surfaces. This method has the potential to indirectly evaluate ephemeral resources that once came into contact with ancient bone artifacts and reconstruct some of the less tangible aspects of ancient human behavior.

Bone tools for leather processing (blunt knives and curriers knives) in the funeral rite of the Post-Catacomb period as cultural and chronological indicators

In the paper, the burials of the Post-Catacomb period (2200–1800 cal BC), whose inventory included large bone tools for leather processing, are analysed. Most of them are represented in the Lola Culture circle (Ciscau-casia and the Volga-Urals), and only in few instances they have been found in the burials of the Babino Culture circle (the Lower Volga and the Lower Don regions). The mapping indicates that in the latter case we are dealing with the evidence of intercultural contacts between the representatives of the Lola and Babino traditions. The analysis of the materials shows that the tradition of using large tools for skin processing in the funeral rite deve-loped at the end of the Middle Bronze Age in Ciscaucasia within the Lola Culture circle. The Lola Culture was the main generator here. Its materials contain the largest number of such tools and their greatest variety. To such an extent, it is not represented within the materials of any other cultural formation of the Post-Catacomb period and in any of the cultures of the Late Bronze Age, where this tradition was inherited and rooted itself. It is noteworthy that in the Post-Catacomb burials, large leather-processing tools in most cases were present in the toolsets alongside other production implements, most often with stone tools. Besides, the functional relation between the bone and stone components of such toolsets is either not obvious or completely absent. It is possible that the interred with the attributes of different crafts might have been associated with the variants of the well-known Cult of Demiurge, well represented in archaic societies. The analysis of some features of the rite and combinations with other categories of the inventory in the burials of the Lola Culture circle shows that there is a correlation be-tween the types of the large leather-processing tools and particular specific features of the ritual practice. Thus, the tools made from the lower jaws and pelvic bones of large ungulate animals clearly correlate with the south-ward orientation of the skeletons in the burials. The leather-processing tools made from the ribs of the large ungu-late animals were seen predominantly in the burials with northward orientations. It is still difficult to say what lies behind such steady correlations, but it should be noted that in a reduced form they recur in the subsequent Late Bronze Age. The answer to the last question requires further expansion of the source base.