[Bonetools] Dama dama antler artefacts

[Selena Vitezović]

Dear Alice,

That is exactly the root of my problem - in Serbia, we have almost no Damas
in prehistory at all, so my experience on the topic is rather limited.
The material I am working on is from eastern Bulgaria and on two sites
zooarchaeologists already discovered tons (well, not tons, but they are
very numerous) of Dama dama bones in the faunal record (for the third,
zooarchaeological analysis is not finished), but, both of the
zooarchaeologists are not sure what to do with fragmented antlers, and
prefer to make identification only when 100 % sure.
In short, it is to be expected to have Dama bones and antlers in the worked
assemblage and we have identified Dama bones used for tools.
Now, fragmented antlers remain problematic, and I would like to see is it
possible to check if there are any preferences towards either of the
species (Cervus elaphus or Dama) and if there are any differencies in
manufacture techniques and/or types. Since most of the surfaces are badly
preserved, there is no use comparing them to the antlers existing in
reference collections (in Belgrade, we have modern Dama antlers, because
Damas were used to re-populate forests in the Iron gates region).
Thing is, zooarchaeological references on Damas are only few, and it seems
Lister's paper is the only one focused on distinguishing Damas from Cervus
- someone already posted some questions on Damas on zooarch list some
months ago, but only answer was the above mentioned Lister. Furthermore, I
haven't seen any publications mentioning worked Dama antlers, so any
comment will be helpful.

Thanks for the advice.
best, Selena


On 14 March 2015 at 16:38, Alice Choyke <choyke at ceu.hu> wrote:

> Dear Selena,
> *       Dama dama *is almost nonexistent in Hungary even as imports in
> the Roman and medieval periods and totally absent in prehistory. Don't
> forget that *Cervus elaphus* can produce some extravagantly palmate crown
> antler that looks very fallow deerish.  I would be willing to bet that only
> something like Zooms could help since DNA is probably out of the financial
> picture and I am unaware of any morphological study of differences between
> red deer and fallow deer antler that I believe in.
>
> Best,
> Alice
>
> On Sat, Mar 14, 2015 at 2:10 PM, Selena Vitezović <
> selenavitezovic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> I need a bit of a help with Dama dama antler artefacts. I think we had
>> already some discussions on the topic, but I still need some help.
>> My main problem is the exact identification (Dama vs C. elaphus), since
>> some were made from small antler segments, and also poorly preserved. Also,
>> I do not know for any larger assemblage of Dama antler artefacts published.
>> Can someone help me with some references, first, on identification (apart
>> from Adrian Lister paper), and second, on published assemblages, especially
>> from SE Europe prehistory (although any period and region would do)?
>>
>> thank you, best, Selena
>> --
>> Selena Vitezović
>> Arheološki institut
>> www.ai.ac.rs
>>
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>
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-- 
Selena Vitezović
Arheološki institut
www.ai.ac.rs
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