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

Sun Aug 16 19:14:18 CEST 2015

Hi everyone,
Hi Alice, Christian

Yes, I would agree to dedicate a particular session on that topic in our next wbrg meeting if our dear Romanian colleagues are agree:
Archaeological evidences on the use of bony matter as a fresh or stored material, and its implication
Ludmila, what do you think?

In the nordic Mesolithic, storing places for bone material called "refuse layer" are under discussion...

That is better to have an extra session than just put some extra data on our web page
+ it will give us the opportunity to share our knowledge from our work, just not informal as through the mailing list lines I read, but formalized in a presentation, whatever they come from, object study or synthetic readings (taphonomy, archaeology, ethnography, modern experiences of craftmans...).

Always enjoying being in tuch with you guys and ready to improve as much my knowledge on bone through
our meetings and discussions.

Best, éva

--------------
Dr. Ph.D. Eva DAVID
CNRS Laboratoire Préhistoire et technologie UMR 7055
Maison Archéologie Ethnologie
Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
21, allée de l'Université
F-92023 Nanterre cedex
+33 1 46 69 24 22
http://www.mae.u-paris10.fr/prehistoire/spip.php?article17
________________________________

________________________________
De : Bonetools [bonetools-bounces at listserv.niif.hu] de la part de Christian Gates St-Pierre [cgates70 at yahoo.fr]
Envoyé : vendredi 14 août 2015 18:21
À : 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
Objet : 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
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Central European University
Medieval Studies Department
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Office: + 36.1.327-3801 choyke at ceu.hu<mailto:choyke at ceu.hu> | www.ceu.hu<http://www.ceu.hu/> |
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>>> "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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