Cutmark Orientation and the Identification of Skill in Experimental and Middle Paleolithic Contexts

Summary

The process of skill accumulation can reveal a great deal about learning, cultural transmission, and the value ascribed by societies to particular tasks or behaviors. Such information is of great interest to Paleolithic archaeologists who are charged with reconstructing these behaviors over vast expanses of space and time. Zooarchaeological remains, and the butchery marks that appear on them, are a potentially rich source of information on skill. Here, we present experimental data on cutmark orientations produced by novice, skilled, and expert butchers with a variety of lithic raw materials and tool types. The results of these experiments are applied to a sample of ancient faunal assemblages in an attempt to track skill level in the Middle Paleolithic.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Connecting Middle Paleolithic Datasets: The Interplay of Zooarchaeological and Lithic Data for Unraveling Neanderthal Behavior

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 13279