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189 17 Bone Artifacts Erika Gál Bone, antler, and teeth are the hardest tissues and raw materials provided by vertebrates.1 The skeletal system provides mechanical support and contributes to the movement of live animals. The primary role of teeth is the mastication of hard food, but—especially canine teeth—are also important weapons in mating fights between males among pigs and horses. The various forms and sizes of antlers are characteristic of male cervids, with the exception of reindeer, whose females also grow antlers. Like tusks in pigs, antlers play an important role in the behaviour of deer in terms of self-defense, the status of the animal within a group, and rivalry among males. Among these raw materials, however, only antler can be obtained from live animals. This opportunity occurs when stags lose their antlers at the end of the mating season at the close of each winter. Collecting shed antler was likely an important spring activity in ancient times, and could be carried out safely and easily by women and even children. In contrast, acquisition of teeth and bone required killing the animals. Evidence of these different wild animal remains at a site can suggest whether hunting was practiced in smaller or larger groups, and most probably by men. In terms of producing tools and ornaments, bone, antler, and teeth have always been raw materials of great significance. Antler was particularly appreciated for the flexibility and the aesthetic quality of the material. Boar tusk, a much more rigid material, makes manufacturing rather difficult, but it was preferred for the production of sharp knives and retouchers . Pendants made from this skeletal part and other teeth displayed the social status and hunting skills of its owner. Bones, however, are the osseous skeletal parts most frequently manufactured into tools and most commonly found during excavations. Since every hunted or slaughtered animal provided numerous bones, they could be shared within a family or group, 1 This chapter with its catalog of artifacts complements the descriptions in Chapter 9. Evidently items identified as worked bone during the excavation were retained in Calabria rather than sent to Rome for study with the faunal collections. (JR) along with the meat, fat and skin (MacGregor 2001; Bartosiewicz 2006). There is a substantial amount of scholarship on Neolithic bone artifacts from more northerly locales , ranging geographically from the Balkan region (e.g. Russel 1990; Sidéra 1996) through Eastern and Central Europe (e.g. Makkay 1990; Beldiman 2002; Christidou 2005; Choyke 2007) to Western Europe (e.g. Poplin 1975; Schibler 1980 and 1981; Bartosiewicz and Choyke 1997; Maggi et al. 1997; Sidéra 2000 and 2001). Little, however, is known about bone tools from Southern Italy. A few short papers on scanty assemblages (e.g. Giomi 1996) or brief notes in papers dealing with faunal analyses (e.g. Tagliacozzo 2005–2006) have mentioned—sometimes without illustrations—bone implements. Therefore, in spite of the modest representation and poor preservation of bone artifacts from Capo Alfiere, the present study brings important new data to the field of archaeoosteology in this region with detailed description and illustration of manufactured specimens. Material and Method As mentioned in the general archaeozoological discussion in Chapter 14, the animal remains from Capo Alfiere derive from three stratigraphic units. Stratum I and Stratum II were deposited during the earlier and the later phase of the Middle Neolithic, respectively, while Stratum III included mixed layers. Among the 8,924 animal bones, of which 5,213 were identifiable, the assemblage from Capo Alfiere yielded 17 bone tools. Nine artifacts originated from the mixed layers ; the earlier and later Middle Neolithic occupations yielded three and five artifacts respectively. Following the protocol employed in the archaeozoological analysis of the bone assemblage, the artifacts are listed below according to their stratigraphic position. As in the case of the general animal bone assemblage , the extremely poor presevation made zoological identification of the artifacts difficult. All of them were damaged by fragmentation. Sometimes mid- 190 Bone Artifacts Tools from Stratum I, Earlier Middle Neolithic Occupation 0 10 mm a b sections of points, broken at both ends, were found. The erosion of bone surfaces and exogenic calcareous concretions made studying the manufacturing and use wear of these rare artifacts further challenging. Despite this information loss, a fairly good picture could be drawn using a standardized system of description. The most complete work about Neolithic implements, including both the osteological (Schibler 1980) and typological (Schibler 1981) study of artifacts , was carried...

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