Distinguishing Tooth Marks from Knapping Marks and Assessing Conflicting Interpretations of Modified Bones from the Upper Paleolithic Site of Gough’s Cave (Somerset, UK)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Animal Resources in Experimental Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Experimental and fossil-based zooarchaeological research attempts to distinguish traces on bones associated with human actions (e.g., butchery marks) from the actions of other faunal agents (e.g., bone gnawing and trampling). Fewer analyses have tried to differentiate gnawing marks from the marks left by hominin activities associated with the preparation and use of bones as tools. In this talk we will focus on knapping tools (bones, teeth, and antlers used to strike lithic material in the preparation of stone tools) and knapping marks, which are a particularly difficult category of bone surface alteration to distinguish from chewing marks. We applied multiple techniques of analysis (focus variation microscopy, CT scanning, SEM, and EDX) to compare alterations inflicted on bones used in knapping experiments with marks on bones chewed by medium-size carnivores. Diagnostic criteria associated with these different agents were used to inform our analysis of an Upper Paleolithic bone assemblage from Gough’s Cave (UK), resulting in the recognition that knapping tools had been misattributed to carnivore chewing in earlier taphonomic studies. These misidentifications have led to erroneous conclusions regarding human behavior at the site and the role of carnivores in accumulating and modifying the bone assemblages at Gough’s Cave.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Animal Resources in Experimental Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36492.0