RGZM Tagungen Bd. 35: the Origins of Bone Tool Technologies
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MILLÁN MOZOTA EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAMMES WITH RETOUCHERS: WHERE DO WE STAND AND WHERE DO WE GO NOW? Abstract This paper presents a critical review of the experimental works with bone retouchers that have been pub- lished since the beginning of research about this type of tool. The aim of this review is not the recollection of references per se, but a critical evaluation of different studies. This critical synthesis will show where we are today from a theoretical and methodological point of view. A number of ideas on how to improve and expand the scientifi c research about retouchers will be proposed together with a range of open archaeolo- gical and experimental issues, which can be addressed by the research community in the years ahead. Keywords Experimental archaeology; Retouchers; Bone tools; Middle Palaeolithic; Methodology Introduction This work focuses on the contributions of experi- mental archaeology as a mechanism to propose and mental archaeology to the study of bone retouch- test explanatory hypotheses about archaeological ers; thus, it is necessary to begin with a brief ex- evidence. This inferential framework can be used as planation and discussion about this theoretical and a tool to validate or falsify hypotheses. methodological approach. For experimental archaeology to have true scien tifi c Experimental archaeology is a methodological rigour, it must meet certain requirements of objectiv- framework based on actualism and empiricism, ity and control. These criteria have been specifi ed in the core concepts behind a systematic, quantitative several studies (Baena, 1997; Callahan, 1999). It is and inferential study of archaeological evidence. also necessary that such experiments are integrated The works of Coles (1973, 1979), Reynolds (1994), into a broader framework of analysis and interpre- Baena (1997) and Callahan (1999) laid the founda- tation of archaeological evidence. And, most impor- tions for the formal development of this theoretical tant, the ultimate goal of this general framework and methodological approach, and these works also cannot be the anecdotal analysis of the materiality contain the main proposals for its practical applica- of archaeological objects. Rather, the goal must be to tion. The aforementioned authors present experi- propose explanatory models of past human societies. The Origins of Bone Tool Technologies 15 Bone retouchers in context physeal splinters with impressions that came from Mousterian sites. Bone retouchers are a common type of tool in the Confusion stemming from variability in bone re- Middle Palaeolithic, but are not confi ned solely to touchers nomenclature was a constant even beyond that period. These tools are percussion implements the 1960s. But, during that decade, development made of bone; most typically they are unmodifi ed of the archaeological, anthropological and historical or barely modifi ed splinters from long bones (in- disciplines, and the new visions of archaeological sci- cluding metapodials) of ungulates. These tools are ence, gave a clearer idea of the nature of such tools. used to retouch stone tools, both in the sense of In a synthesis of the European continent, Taute shaping an implement (e.g., a side-scraper) and (1965) enumerated a large collection of retouchers for rejuvenating a dull edge. In most cases, when in hard animal tissues (mostly bones, but also teeth archaeological retouchers have been studied in and antler) with a wide chronological perspective, depth, it was determined that they were used in ranging from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. This percussion tasks. Only in a few cases were they work included retouchers from several Middle Pa- used in pressure-style retouching tasks, the use laeolithic sites in Central Europe. The bulk of Taute‘s traces from which are very different from those sample was made of epiphyseal and diaphyseal produced by percussion. splinters with impressions, which led to the conclu- In the early 20th century, Henri-Martin (1906) sion that the tools are bone retouchers – used for fi rst determined the existence of this specifi c type retouching lithic implements with a percussion (not of bone tool among the faunal remains of La Quina, pressure) technique. France. These implements were diaphyseal splin- Since the early 1970s, researchers have found ters from ungulate bones, and they were possibly more Palaeolithic bone retouchers throughout used to retouch Mousterian lithic tools. At this early Europe, mostly in Middle Palaeolithic (particularly stage, some functional uncertainty can be perceived Mousterian) sites. Some important examples include in the texts, and researchers alternatively pro- Kůlna Cave in the Czech Republic (Valoch, 1988), posed that the bone splinters were active elements Abrigo Tagliente in Italy (Leonardi, 1979) and Peña (mallets/ percussion tools, Fr. maillets/ percuteurs) or Miel in Spain (Barandiarán, 1987), but there are do- other wise passive (anvils, Fr. enclumes) when writ- zens of sites where the presence of these tools was ing about how they were used. At about the same detected and published. Throughout the 1970s to time, de Mortillet and de Mortillet (1910) defi ned 2000s, dozens of new and old sites with retouchers the compressor (Fr. compresseur) as a bone tool that were documented and published (Mozota, 2012). was characteristic of the Solutrean period, used for Bone retouchers were also documented in se v - pressure retouch activities. In most cases, the label er al deposits from the European Upper Palaeolithic of Middle Palaeolithic bone tools as anvils was soon in France, such as the Protoaurignacian and Early- discarded (Siret, 1925), and throughout the fi rst to-Evolved Aurignacian layers from Gatzarria (Saenz half of the 20th century, these tools originally de- de Buruaga, 1987; Tartar, 2012), or the Aurigna- scribed by Henri-Martin were typically identifi ed by cian from Grotte des Hyènes (Tartar, 2003) and Abri the term “compressor-retoucher“ (Fr. compresseurs- Casta net (Tartar, 2012) . retouchoirs). But, as was typically of most works For the Solutrean, there are examples too, such from period, there was no consideration about as Le Petit Cloup Barrat in France (Castel et al., how individual objects, or even whole assemblages, 2006). And for the Magdalenian, bone retouchers could have been used. were found in La Garenne (Rigaud, 1977), Isturitz In the early 1960s, Bordes (1961) includes Solu- and La Vache (Schwab, 2005), all from France, and trean bone compressors in his typological lists, and in the German sites of Gönnersdorf and Andernach stated that they were used differently than the dia- (Tinnes, 2001). 16 Millán Mozota · Experimental programmes with retouchers: where do we stand and where do we go now? Outside Europe, retouchers have been docu- use traces are studied to make functional inferen- mented in other Pleistocene contexts, such as in the ces, but this is not systematic. Middle Stone Age layers at Blombos Cave, South Africa (Henshilwood et al., 2001) and in the Middle Palaeolithic of Umm-el-Tlel (Syria) (Boëda et al., Experimental archaeology and bone 1998) and El Harhoura (Morocco) (Michel et al., retouchers: a historiographical perspective 2009). In the Americas, the presence of bone re- touchers has been documented in various contexts A century of experimental work: from the early of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. There is a type of 20th century to the beginning of 21st century tool defi ned by Jackson (1990) as an end-side re- toucher (Sp. retocador extremo lateral). This type of Siret (1925) performed one of the fi rst detailed ex- tool is virtually identical to the concept of retoucher periments of lithic retouch with bone fragments. on diaphyseal splinters from European Palaeolithic He conducted these activities within the framework sites. Retocadores extremo laterales have been of discussion about the role of bone splinters with found in Paleoindian contexts (Pleistocene) at Fell impressions that had been recognized at La Quina 1 in Magallanes, Chile (Massone and Prieto, 2004). (Henri-Martin, 1906) and other Mousterian sites. There are also some examples from the recent pe- Choosing between the different hypotheses of the riod (Holocene) in Magallanes at the site of Orejas time, Siret concluded that the diaphyseal fragments de Burro 1 (Lorena-L‘Heureux, 2008). with impressions were retouchers, not compressors As for theoretical and methodological develop- or anvils, used as active elements for working fl int ments, during the early 1990s Chase (1990) resumed tools. He further stated that these tools were used in the study of the bone tools from La Quina. He ana- pressure fl aking tasks instead of percussion. He con- lyzed a selected sample of materials and concluded sidered that the lithic tool was held in one hand and that many bone splinters were used as retouchers pressed against the bone tool, which was held in for percussion tasks. Chase (1990) integrated this the other hand, until the detachment of a retouch- analysis into an explanatory model of Middle Pa- ing fl ake. laeo lithic tools, whereby retouchers were proposed During this period, experiments were always as one of the key elements refl ecting Neanderthal repli cative and based on subjective and qualitative cognitive (dis)abilities (see also Dibble, 1989). While observations. In most cases, little data on the speci- this proposal has been disproven by many studies fi c experimental procedures were offered. about Neanderthals (e.g., d‘Errico, 2003; Zilhão, Semenov (1956) defi ned some features