EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY &

MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC BONE TOOLS:

SOME BASIC NOTES, ADVICE & EXAMPLES

MILLÁN MOZOTA HOLGUERAS

E. Técnicos Especializados OPIS A2

Departamento de Antropología & Arqueología

IMF-CSIC

Doctor Vinculado IIIPC

Universidad de Cantabria

Q: What do I really need

to begin with?

• You need questions.

• Archaeological questions.

• Not really a super-question.

• But reasonable, realistic questions:

– Born during your study of archaeological materials.

– That can actually be solved (or at least evaluated) through experimentation.

Ok, got questions

What now?

• You need planning.

• No, really, an experimental program is called

a program for some reason.

• Even if you want to do some “explorative

experience” you need to plan it.

• Plan everything: from the obtaining of

materials, to the recording of information, and

of course the physical experimentation itself.

That implies a lot of things…

• Indeed, let’s compartmentalize it:

– Archaelogical question(s): You already have it.

– Experiment(s): You do that because you need

information, but this information has to be:

• Reliable

• Verifiable

• Communicable

– So, you don’t need only information, you need data.

– Now that this is clear, just think about:

• What data do you need to solve your question?

• How could you make the experiment(s) to get the data?

– It should be organizad in variables (yes, the statistical ones)

– Quantitative is better than qualitative.

– Numerical scales are better than presence-absence.

– Meassurements are better that other numerical data.

But… Why?

– Because you will be able to do a better work in your analysis if your data is statistically usable (and it is used).

A word about the data…

– Independent variables:

• Traits that you think are relevant to solve

your archaeological questions.

• Example: In my program about “Fracturing

bones to obtain retoucher blanks”:

– Taxonomical origin of bone

– Anatomical origin of bone

– Bone freshness (green-dry)

– General fracture strategy

– Etc…

About the variables (I)

– Dependent variables: • From a conceptual point of view they are the aspects

that change when the independent variables change.

• But thay are also the way you want to organize the

data resulting from your experiments.

• In the same example as above (Fracturing bones…):

– Shape of fractures

– Number of usable blanks

– Number of non-usable fragments

– Blanks: Length, Width (both straigh & along cortical

surface), Thickness…

– Blanks: % of total diaphysis circunference.

– Derivative: Indexes, transformations…

About the variables (II)

…enough of text and concepts

Lets see some pictures!

Dry vs. green bone: hands on

Dry vs. green bone: processed data

Breaking bones for the marrow fat

vs. retoucher blank production: hands on

Breaking bones for the marrow fat

vs. retoucher blank production: processed data

Use “Quina”-like retouch

vs. “Simple” retouch: tools and traces

Use “Quina”-like retouch

vs. “Simple” retouch: processed data

Widespread chipping appears frecuently in retouchers used for “Quina”-like retouch. Same damage scarcely appears in retouchers used for “Simple” retouch.

Use Retouching flint

vs. Retouching quartzite: tools and traces

When retouching flint the number of longitudinal striations is lower than when doing quartzite retouching. And the lenght of linear impressions is typically longer than in quartzite retouching tasks.

Use Retouching flint

vs. Retouching quartzite: tools and traces