How to Carve Ivory and Drill Holes in Mammoth Ivory Beads

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Examining Spatial-Temporal Variation in the Lithic Technology of the Early Upper Paleolithic" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Researchers have often called the Swabian Aurignacian the Ivory Age, and in fact, this term is entirely fitting due to the great number and diversity of ivory artifacts. These artifacts include a wide variety of both tools and symbolic artifacts including beads, figurines and flutes. Here we address which stone tools were used to make ivory artifacts. Based on experimental research and comparisons with archaeological material, we discuss techniques used for carving, marking and drilling. We also examine the prospects of identifying specific signatures of individual ivory craftspeople. While we employ a range of macroscopic techniques, our focus lies on how high-resolution microscopic, techno-functional studies can contribute to these questions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Examining Spatial-Temporal Variation in the Lithic Technology of the Early Upper Paleolithic   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41728.0