Identification of Adhesive on Bone-Handled Microblades from the Houtaomuga Site in Northeast China

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

With the emergence and progress of composite tools in the Upper Paleolithic, the adhesive became one of the most widely used materials by early human societies. However, the precise composition identification of adhesive in archaeological remains is a real analytical challenge, because the adhesive mainly consists of organic materials that are susceptible to decay during burial process. Of particular interest is to know which animal/plant species were being exploited for glue manufacturing. The Houtaomuga site, located in northeast China, provides favorable conditions for the preservation of organic residues. A few bone-handled microblades were collected from this site, with some gray adhesive exposed in the groove of bone handle. In this study, we scraped micro adhesive samples of bone-handled microblades, and we have carried out FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) and proteomics analysis to determine the protein components and precise origins. The identified from tandem mass spectra of doubly protonated tryptic peptides match most closely to know horse collagen markers, suggesting the adhesive was an animal glue made from horse. These results reveal the diverse utilizations of cattle in the Houtamuga site, which provided not only meat and hides, but also parts for manufacturing adhesive.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26066