<div>Dear Leigh,</div>
<div> Just to be clear - what species and what skeletal element is this object made from? The manufacturing wear visible on the edges smay indicate whether this is a prehistoric object or not - if only flint and abrasive materials were used in its manufacture then it would be a very odd roman object indeed.</div>
<div> I would be most careful of descriptions of bone tools attributing them to 'decorating pottery' without the appropriat use wear analyses.. Notched edges can be used for a number of other puposes. . That said - this object does not look like any kind of roman bone tool that one finds in pannonia. The local Celtic population here is also producing mainly ornaments from osseous materials or objects that are parts of compound tools. This looks a bit like a self-standing object unless the tanged end was somhow embedded in a handle.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Alice<br><br></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 2:28 PM, Leigh Allen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:leigh.allen@oxfordarch.co.uk">leigh.allen@oxfordarch.co.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Dear Colleagues,<br><br>I attach a photograph of a rather beautiful bone object recovered from one of our excavations at Didcot, Oxfordshire, if anyone can tell me what it may have been used for I would be most grateful, it came from a Late Roman context. The closest parallel I have found so far are Prehistoric tools for decorating pots although these tend to have teeth at the splayed end and a perforation through the centre.<br>
<br>Many thanks<br><br>Leigh Allen<br><br><br><br><br>------<br>Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open Document Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit <a href="http://iso26300.info/" target="_blank">http://iso26300.info</a> for more information.<br>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>Bonetools mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Bonetools@listserv.niif.hu">Bonetools@listserv.niif.hu</a><br><a href="https://listserv.niif.hu/mailman/listinfo/bonetools" target="_blank">https://listserv.niif.hu/mailman/listinfo/bonetools</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br>