Traces of use on beaver teeth. The teeth as tools

PARMIGIANI, VANESA; ALVAREZ SONCINI, M. CELINA

traceology Today: Methodological Issues in the Old Word and the Americas

British Achaeological Reports

Año: 2014; p. 69 - 74

The dental pieces constitute an important part of the archaeological material recovered in numerous sites and with different chronologies. These are a first degree taxonomic indicator but also, at the same time, an excellent material for making ornaments and tools. this last aspect is the one that we are interested in presenting in the following work. Resuming the analysis of instruments on beaver jaws from the Zamostje site, on the north of Moscow (Russia), carried out by I. Clemente, E.Y. Gyria, O.V. Lozovzska and V.M. Lozovski, we set up as an objective to complement said study and to contribute to the consideration of the teeth as potential tools. To this end, an experimental study with jaws of Castor canadensis, was carried out using the incisors as tools, to see how these dental pieces perform when they are utilized for scraping and cutting on different materials such as wood, hide and bone. The incisors were observed with a binocular magnifier and a metallographic microscope before being utilized and in the many later stages during experimentation, keeping a photographic record and a description not only of the micro polish, but also of the complimentary traces developed.