Investigating maintenance and discard patterns for Middle to Late Magdalenian antler projectile points : inter-site and inter-regional comparisons
Projectile points manufactured from antler, bone, ivory, and horn were a significant component of the Pleistocene hunter-gathererâs weapons toolkit. While this situation appears to have been particularly the case for Upper Palaeolithic Europe where thousands of implements from Aurignacian to Azilian contexts have been recovered, elements of osseous technologies are increasingly being identified in Africa, Asia, Australia and North America. Projectile weaponry tipped with osseous raw materials therefore constitute a major dataset for the investigation of technological, subsistence, and social aspects of various and numerous Pleistocene populations. Having once been described as âimpossible to evaluateâ, investigation of maintenance and discard patterns for osseous projectile point assemblages has been severely neglected in the archaeological literature. As previous work has generally been restricted to qualitative descriptions of single artefacts exhibiting clear signs of rejuvenation or recycling, our knowledge of âthe keepingâ of these toolkits is therefore extraordinarily limited. This thesis addresses this imbalance through beginning to build a robust methodology for investigating the maintenance,
Langley, Michelle Claire
Archaeology ; Osseous technology; Magdalenian; Upper Palaeolithic; projectile technology
Investigating maintenance and discard patterns for Middle to Late Magdalenian antler projectile points : inter-site and inter-regional comparisons. Projectile points manufactured from antler, bone, ivory, and horn were a significant component of the Pleistocene hunter-gathererâs weapons toolkit. While this situation appears to have been particularly the case for Upper Palaeolithic Europe where thousands of implements from Aurignacian to Azilian contexts have been recovered, elements of osseous technologies are increasingly being identified in Africa, Asia, Australia and North America. Projectile weaponry tipped with osseous raw materials therefore constitute a major dataset for the investigation of technological, subsistence, and social aspects of various and numerous Pleistocene populations. Having once been described as âimpossible to evaluateâ, investigation of maintenance and discard patterns for osseous projectile point assemblages has been severely neglected in the archaeological literature. As previous work has generally been restricted to qualitative descriptions of single artefacts exhibiting clear signs of rejuvenation or recycling, our knowledge of âthe keepingâ of these toolkits is therefore extraordinarily limited. This thesis addresses this imbalance through beginning to build a robust methodology for investigating the maintenance,
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