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

Sat Aug 15 15:13:06 CEST 2015

Dear All,
    Eva David experimented with this issue at Lejre and if I recall she
found no differences between fresh or prepared bone. It is more a question
of which kind of bone we find more disgusting in the twenty-first century.
I suspect craftspeople chose different variants depending on what became
the local manufacturing traditon. It is my firm belief that human beings
only very rarely chose efficiency for efficiency's sake.

Alice

On Sat, Aug 15, 2015 at 2:54 PM, <escoffier1951 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi Christian,
>
>
>
> I agree with you on that bones are best not worked on when too fresh. I’ve
> made a couple of notes that might be useful to those who are considering or
> just starting to work with fresh bones. I like working with bones that have
> been brought to the boil and simmered until all of the connective tissues
> and fats have dissolved. After many years working with bone I’ve still got
> a lot to learn.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Paul Stokes
>
>
>
> Sent from Mail <http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
> Windows 10
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Christian Gates St-Pierre
> *Sent: *14 August 2015 17:30
> *To: *Mailing list for archaeologists of the research group for the study
> of object and waste of bone, antler. ivory and
> horn.;dkconstantine at btinternet.com
> *Subject: *Re: [Bonetools] bones as raw material - fresh or stored?
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
>
>
> I agree with most of what's been said already: bone is best worked when it
> is not too fresh, and not too dry, and there are many possible treatments
> to make bones more workable. I did not personnally experimented a large
> array of techniques, but informations can be gleaned in the ethnographic,
> ethnoarchaeological, and experimental litterature.
>
>
>
> Alice: it would be great indeed to post this discussion thread on the WGRG
> web page, as it may be of interest to many other specialists and students.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Christian
>
>
>
> *Christian Gates St-Pierre*
>
> Chercheur invité/Invited Researcher
>
> Département d'anthropologie
>
> Université de Montréal
>
> christian.gates-st-pierre at umontreal.ca
>
>
>
> *De :* Alice Choyke <Choyke at ceu.edu>
> *À :* dkconstantine at btinternet.com; bonetools at listserv.niif.hu
> *Envoyé le :* vendredi 14 août 2015 5h28
> *Objet :* Re: [Bonetools] bones as raw material - fresh or stored?
>
>
>
> Dear all - this is a rather interesting line of discussion that perhaps
> could profitably be added to webpage under the experimentation section
> managed by Eva David. What do you think Christian. I suspect these
> techniques were variable across time and space and the more we collect of
> ourown experiences with bone working the better!
>
>
>
> Alice
>
> ALICE M. CHOYKE
>
> *Associate Professor*
>
> --------------------------------------------------------[image:
> cid:S9vB6U8DarwDxtPFDMzX]
>
> Central European University
>
> Medieval Studies Department
>
> Nador u. 9,
>
> 1051 Budapest, Hungary
>
> *Office**:* + 36.1.327-3801 choyke at ceu.hu | www.ceu.hu |
>
> www.wbrg.net | www.imareal.sbg.ac.at/mad/ | www.medievalstudies.ceu.hu
>
> *See CEU story**: * www.youtube.com/ceuhungary
>
>
>
>
> >>> "Dave Constantine" <dkconstantine at btinternet.com> 08/04/15 2:30 PM >>>
> 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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