[Bonetools] Dama dama antler artefacts

[isabelle.sidera at mae.u-paris10.fr]

Dear Selena,

In the bone objects collection from Drama, eastern Bulgaria, level
Karanovo V and Karanovo VI, the cervide the most frequent is Dama, used
for producing axes like artefacts which can be decorated. Cervus exists
also in this collection but is much less frequent. In Neolithic, Karanovo
I and before, Cervide is rare, and only elaphus. No Dama. You will find
papers with objects made of Dama in my academia pages, see Drama.
What is the chronology of your collection?

Best, Isabelle



> 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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>>> Bonetools mailing list
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>>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Selena Vitezović
> Arheološki institut
> www.ai.ac.rs
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