Making Silent Bones Speak: The Analysis of Orphaned Osseous Tools Illustrated with Mesolithic Stray Finds

Abstract

Orphaned osseous tools are very often perceived as having a high aesthetic value, but are usually under-examined. This article illustrates the research potential of these artefacts, with a case study of Mesolithic stray finds from Lithuania. Four bone points from the River Šventoji, Vaikantonys, Obšrūtai and Kamšai were subjected to AMS dating, tandem mass spectrometry for animal species identification, and technological and use-wear analysis. The results revealed that all four bone points could be dated to the Boreal period, and imply an Early to Middle Mesolithic date. Harpoons from the River Šventoji and Kamšai were most likely made of aurochs bones. All of the bone points were produced from long sections of tubular long bones, and three of the points show signs of reuse. Overall, the analysis revealed similarities with contemporaneous material in northern Europe. Within the context of the present research, the paper briefly describes other scientific methods which could be applied to orphaned bone and antler tools, including biomolecular and stable isotope analysis. Digital recording methods can be useful for bone artefact recording. This is relevant today, as the demand for good-quality digital representations is increasing, in order to apply software for further analysis, such as geometric morphometrics. As a result, more widespread and systematic applications of these new methods to orphaned osseous finds would lead to a significant activation of these finds in a scientific and outreach context.

Bone Points in Time: Dating Hunter-Gatherer Bone Points in the Territory of Lithuania

“…The biserial point from Plateliai is apparently the oldest, dating to 8537–8275 cal BC. Previously published dating results of Kamšai and Šventoji River uniserial points (Ivanovaitė et al 2018) fall to 8286–7963 cal BC and 8230–7830 cal BC, respectively.…”

“…A few decades later, Rimantienė (1974) compiled all the known Stone Age finds in the first volume of the Atlas of the Lithuanian Archaeology, including the list of osseous tools. Some of these artifacts have been discussed in recent works on the Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic in the eastern Baltic (e.g., Ostrauskas 1996;Girininkas 2009;Girininkas and Daugnora 2015; Šatavic ˇius 2016), yet chronological and technological data of osseous points have not been re-evaluated by modern research methods since their first publication, except four artifacts studied by Ivanovaitė et al (2018). Thus, the selection criteria of bone points for this study were based on the variability of types and the lack of research.…”

“…The first radiocarbon dating of stray bone and antler harpoons from Lake Lubāns (Latvia) indicated the continuation of Final Paleolithic technology in the Early Holocene, informing discussion of the transition between the Final Paleolithic and the earliest Mesolithic (Meadows et al 2014). More chronological investigations of single osseous artifacts from the eastern Baltic followed, creating typo-chronological models for particular Late Pleistocene and Holocene organic implement technologies (Ivanovaitė et al 2018; Philippsen et al 2019; Zagorska et al 2019; Rimkus et al 2019; Piličiauskas et al 2020). These studies provided many important insights, involving such aspects as when the eastern Baltic region was settled at the end of the Late Glacial and how certain tool types developed in the Holocene.…”

Using Radiocarbon Dates and Tool Design Principles to Assess the Role of Composite Slotted Bone Tool Technology at the Intersection of Adaptation and Culture-History

“…4 Calibrated radiocarbon date plots (normalized areas) of slotted point contexts and stray find slotted points in the study area ordered according to the longitudinal coordinate of the find location. Data from Apel et al (2017), Bergsvik & David (2015), Bjørnevad et al (2019), Brinch Petersen (2015, Edgren (1997), Eriksson et al (2003), Gummesson & Molin (2019), Gurina (1956, Hartz et al (2010), Ivanovaitė et al (2018), Jungklaus et al (2016), Jussila et al (2012, Kjällquist (2001), Kjällquist et al (2016), Larsson (2005), Miettinen et al (2008), Oshibkina (1989), Persson (2014), Philippsen et al (2019), Sjöström & Hammarstrand Dehman (2010), Skakun et al (2011), Sten et al (2000, Vang Petersen (2001), Zaretskaya et al (2005), and this study. See SI 2 for radiocarbon dates and coordinates use is now detected in the Eastern Baltic region and Belarus almost throughout the Early Holocene, ca.…”

“…Until recently, a very limited number of sites with more or less securely dated inset bone tool contexts has been reported from the vast area stretching from the Scandinavian Peninsula to the Moscow region in the east (Knutsson et al, 2016). However, with the addition of 13 slotted tools from Strandvägen and Kanaljorden sites in Motala, Sweden (Gummesson & Molin, 2019), as well as direct dates on the slotted points from Vaikantonys and Obšrūtai in Lithuania (Ivanovaitė et al, 2018), the slotted knife from Ulbi, Estonia (Bjørnevad et al, 2019) and a slotted point from an unknown location in the southeastern Baltic (Philippsen et al, 2019), the chronological position of inset bone tool technology in the area is becoming more robustly constrained, yet even this Fig. 1 a The Northern Hemisphere and the area discussed in the paper.…”