Book of Abstracts

MIOTTI LAURA; MARCHIONNI, LAURA

Paris

Congreso; S.6-2. Grounding social zooarchaeology: branding methodology to bear on social question. X ICAZ 2010; 2010

International Council of Archaeozoology

The object of this paper is to discuss the problem about the equifinality generated by the high frequency of autopodial ungulate bones in hunter-gatherers archaeological contexts. These skeletal parts are considered by zooarchaeologists as units of low economical return. The most common answers to these frequencies are referring them to taphonomic questions (differential survival/preservation of bones, human or predators behaviours), and to a methodological bias produced throughout sampling, quantification, fragmentation, and taxonomic determination, among others. Comparative analysis of large Patagonian sites which were occupied between the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and the late Holocene by hunter-gatherers that depended on guanacos (Lama guanicoe),as a main resource, indicates that in several of these cases a high frequency of autopodial elements are present. This remarkable occurrence appears in kill sites, in camp sites and in places of special activities. On the other hand, “cannon bones of guanaco” (metapodials) appear as preforms of tools or as complete tools. The results obtained in several study cases have shown that these skeletal elements had been carried to the camp sites as portions of low economical units attached to parts with a high nutrition value (meat and fat); in this case the idea shows the metapodials as stowaway and then are discarded. In other cases the underlying idea is the “schlepp effect”. In this concept the bones are regarded as important rather than as attaches to other resources –tendons- which are considered as raw materials widely used in clothes, tents, etc., in this sense these special anatomical parts are considered as part of sewing kits of mobile people. Ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological sources, together with new chemical studies on fat composition indicate that the marrow of large mammal metapodials has been extendedly consumed by hunter-gatherers. The main cause for this choice has been its high quality and palatability. This information allows us to propose an alternative hypothesis in which these bones may be interpreted as the product of human selections, not only as excellent raw materials to produce tools, but also as palatable nutritional goods because of the quality and taste of the fat that they contain.