[Bonetools] bones as raw material - fresh or stored?

[Lena Strid]

Hi David,

Thank you so much for your detailed reply.

I have a deposit of Roman animal bone work waste (consistent butchery pattern, with epiphyses chopped off in the same way and the shafts splintered longitudinally), with an unusual large amount of horse. I figured that it would have been easy for a bone worker to get regular supply of fresh cattle bones from the butchers. Horses on the other hand... You would either need to hang on to bones for quite a while, or the bones would come from an opportunistic purchase after an epidemic or other mass-slaughter. 

You said it is easier to do the rough cuts while the bone is fresh, and it may be what we're dealing with here (although the question would be where all the fresh horse bones would come from (the deposit contains bones from at least 39 horses and there are no correlating absences of certain elements in neither this assemblage nor another rural assemblage nearby)).
Although Paul Stokes said that dry and cleaned bones can be used without any problems even after 15 years, so perhaps another question would be how long it would take them to collect all these bones? (and if the bones were kept for years, why not just work them after they were cleaned?)

I may get back to you later with more specific questions. I'd like to write an article about the deposit so that would be more detailed than what I'd write for the report.

All the best,
Lena


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Constantine" <dkconstantine at btinternet.com>
To: "Mailing list for archaeologists of the research group for the study of object and waste of bone, antler. ivory and horn." <bonetools at listserv.niif.hu>
Sent: Tuesday, 4 August, 2015 1:28:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Bonetools] bones as raw material - fresh or stored?

Hi Lena,

Bone can be worked dry but is less forgiving and has a tendency to fracture 
more easily than when fresh or soaked.

Depending on the type of working, my personal preferences for softening are 
soaking or boiling in water. Soaking is used for general working - when 
making small objects such as needles and pins I keep the blanks in a pot of 
water all the time so that they are always soaked when I come to work them. 
Boiling is used when I am carving (particularly antler) as I find it 
penetrates further and more rapidly than soaking alone and the effect can be 
renewed quickly and easily, making it particularly suitable for the removal 
of large amounts of material when carving a design. Generally I boil the 
material for 10-15 minutes (depending on size) then have about the same in 
working time before it dries out too much.

When it is thoroughly soaked in water bone tends to "shave" rather than 
"flake" when worked with a blade, which allows for quicker and neater 
shaping of the basic form of the object. However, for any work involving 
files and rasps I would recommend dry bone to prevent clogging. Boiling 
gives a similar effect but it can be achieved more rapidly. Due to the 
nature of bone though, boiling can cause hairline longitudinal cracks to 
appear that are not always immediately noticeable, and so care must be taken 
to keeping checking the state of the bone.

Fresh bone can be very easily worked, and for a roughing out stage it is a 
good idea to do at least some basic preparation when the bone is fresh. If 
working with longbones, I would normally remove the epiphyses and split the 
bone lengthways while fresh. This also has the added advantage of removing 
much of the material that would leak excess grease/fat into the workable 
sections if the bone were processed whole. Anything involving shock to the 
bone; e.g. using an axe, is best done when the bone is fresh as it is far 
less likely to shatter than dry or even softened bone.

There would probably be some difference in saw marks left on fresh bone 
rather than dry/soaked bone, but I haven't tried it in earnest yet and 
compared the two. I did a quick test a couple of years ago with an axe, 
drawknife and rasp (dry bone) and axe and drawknife (fresh bone) and there 
certainly seemed to be some difference in the marks. In particular, the last 
point of contact between the waste shaving and the main bone was notable; 
more of break on the dry bone and more of a cut on the fresh bone. I am sure 
that once checked under a microscope it would be clearer.

Sorry for the brief reply, but feel free to ask any specific questions and 
if I can answer them I will.

Regards,

David Constantine



-----Original Message----- 
From: Lena Strid
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2015 11:42 AM
To: Mailing list for archaeologists of the research group for the study of
object and waste of bone, antler. ivory and horn.
Subject: [Bonetools] bones as raw material - fresh or stored?

Dear all,

Are there any information on whether bones used for bone working (Iron Age -
early Post-medieval) had to be relatively fresh, or could they be stored for
months (years?)?  MacGregor mentions soaking antler to make it easy to cut,
but would this also work with dry bone?

I have difficulty finding information on this, as most things I can find
concern modern bone working with dremels etc, which I assume would be less
sensitive to freshness/dryness of bone than using hand tools.

With thanks,
Lena
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