[Bonetools] bone tool of the month

[Anne Brundle]

Hi Alice,

 

I'd be delighted for our picture to be an 'object of the month'! Thank
you.

 

We don't get many artefacts identified as seal bone at all, but is there
a tendency to see what we're looking for? The most famous published
'seal' artefact from Orkney is the Futhark pendant from the Brough of
Birsay (Curle 1982) - except it was re-identified at the National Museum
in the 1990s as a bear tooth.  : ) 

 

 

There isn't much seal bone in the zooarchaeological record either. A
quick glance through the books on my desk shows that the massive
excavation of the Iron Age settlement at Howe produced only five
identified seal bones, all from young animals. The Brough Road
excavations in Birsay had seal bone through all the phases 'but in small
numbers only' and the Beachview excavations, also in Birsay, had only
very occasional seal.

 

 

A review of the bones used for artefacts would be an interesting project
for someone - Vicki Szabo mentioned in her book that small artefacts of
cortical whalebone may be classified as general mammal, and thus
under-represented in the literature. I look forward to the research
requests - but, sorry, we have no money!

 

Best wishes

Anne

 

________________________________

From: bonetools-bounces at listserv.niif.hu
[mailto:bonetools-bounces at listserv.niif.hu] On Behalf Of Alice Choyke
Sent: 27 October 2009 12:04
To: aesr05 at ukgateway.net; Mailing list for archaeologists of the
research group for the study ofobject and waste of bone,antler. ivory
and horn.
Subject: Re: [Bonetools] bone tool of the month

 

Anne -Clearly it would be very worthwhile trying to identify species and
skeletal element for these combs more closely. How much seal bone is
used in the Orkneys anyway?

 

Alice

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 9:19 AM, aesr05 at ukgateway.net
<aesr05 at ukgateway.net> wrote:

I hesitate to extend this discussion, but wonder could it be seal
bone??? Colour, texture looks good for that. Colleen

 

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