bone

“Look at the Bones!” - Adding Bone in a Bloomery Iron Smelt

Author(s)
Darrell Markewitz 1
Publication Date
A case study of a practical experimental test. Through 2019, much was made in the popular press suggesting that during the Viking Age, exhumed human bone had been used in the chain of production from iron ore through to finished swords. Contradicting this, considerable experience with small scale direct reduction process bloomery iron smelting furnaces indicated that at least while creating the iron itself...

Different Types of Needles for Specific Uses? Experimental Reproductions of some Finds from Aradetis Orgora, Georgia

Author(s)
Sara Maria Stellacci 1
Publication Date
This research aimed to evaluate some new hypotheses about the production and use of a class of pointed tools from the Bronze Age layers of Aradetis Orgora (Georgia), which have been traditionally considered as pins. Its main goal was to provide an alternative interpretation of their function, namely as tools used in basketry. The study was divided into two experimental steps...

Roman Bone Artefacts – First Steps Towards a New Approach

Author(s)
Hildegard Müller 1 ✉,
Sabine Deschler-Erb 1,
Dorota Wojtczak 1
Publication Date
To date, archaeologists often use a typological approach to assess the functions of bone artefacts from the Roman period. In some of these assigned typological groups, certain artefacts do not have a clear definition. This study aimed to assess whether use-wear analysis combined with experimental archaeology could be applied to bone artefacts from the Roman period as ...

Roe Deer as Raw Material for Middle Mesolithic Fishhooks? An Experimental Approach to the Manufacture of Small Bone Fishhooks

Author(s)
Anja Mansrud 1 ✉,
Morten Kutschera 2
Publication Date
Bone fishhooks have occasionally been retrieved from bone assemblages at coastal sites dating to the Middle Mesolithic phase (8300-6300 cal. BC) in Southern Norway and Western Sweden. Several studies of fishhooks from these sites have been undertaken in recent years. Fishhooks can be manufactured from different osseous materials, including antler, ribs and shafts of different long bones...

Spinning in Circles: the Production and Function of Upper Palaeolithic Rondelles

Author(s)
Andy Needham 1 ✉,
A. Langley 1,
H. Benton 1,
S. Biggs 1,
J. Cousen 1,
A. Derry 1,
M. Hardman 1,
K. Macy 1,
D. Millar 1,
E. Murray 1,
F. Pock 1,
J. Rowsell 1,
M. Sandin Catacora 1,
G. Van Oordt 1,
D. Veitch-Scoggins 1,
Aimée Little 1
Publication Date
Rondelles are thin, circular disc cut-outs typically made from the blade of the scapula of medium sized ungulates, such as horse or cervid. These are primarily associated with the Late Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian and focused around northwest Europe. Rondelles are frequently...

A Seventh Century BC Picenian Cloack Clasp Made of Iron, Bone, Bronze and Amber: Reconstruction of a Masterpiece

Author(s)
Mauro Fiorentini 1
Publication Date
This article is dedicated to the reconstruction I’ve done in 2017 of a Picenian cloack clasp which is a pretty unique find. It has been found in a prince’s grave dating back to the early 7th Century b.C. and is considered a rare find because only a few similar items have been found in Central Italy, and because of the rare use of amber decorations and bronze plates, that makes this find a true masterpiece...

Twenty Years with Flint. The Society for Experimental Prehistoric Archaeology – Where are We Now?

Author(s)
Grzegorz Osipowicz 1 ✉,
Justyna Kuriga 1
Publication Date
The Society of Experimental Prehistoric Archaeology (SEPA, www.keap.umk.pl) is an organisation affiliated with the Nicolaus Copernicus University’s Institute of Archaeology since 1998. The first academic supervisor of SEPA was Jolanta Małecka-Kukawka, now led by Grzegorz Osipowicz...

Bone

Hard dense tissue forming the skeleton. 

How Did They Drill That? – A Few Observations on the Possible Methods for Making Large-sized Holes in Antler

Author(s)
Justyna Orłowska 1
Publication Date
From the Neolithic period comes a whole range of various kinds of artefacts made of antler (for example axes, hammer-adzes), distinguished by the presence of a large hole (diameter over 2 cm) in their structure. With time, archaeologists started to wonder about possible ways of producing holes of this type...