TY - JOUR
T1 - Intrasite Spatial Analysis of Bone
T2 - Subtracting the Effect of Secondary Carnivore Consumers
AU - Marean, Curtis W.
AU - Bertino, Leanne
N1 - Funding Information:
The experimental stage of this study was greatly facilitated by the helpful staff at the Berkeley Spotted Hyena Colony, Berkeley, California. Laurence Frank was particularly helpful during the research with the hyenas, and Stephen Glickman consented to the experiments. The captive colony is supported by the National Institutes of Health grant No. 5R01 MH 39917 to Stephen Glickman. The analysis stage of this project was assisted by a grant from the Office of the Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences, SUNY at Stony Brook.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1994.
PY - 1994/10/1
Y1 - 1994/10/1
N2 - Animal bones discarded by people are commonly subject to disturbance by carnivores. These carnivores are present throughout the world and include wolves, coyotes, hyenas, and many others. This disturbance not only modifies and destroys bone, but also moves many of the bone fragments away from their original position of discard. Intrasite spatial analyses of bone that seek patterns meaningful to human behavior thus need to subtract the effect of carnivore disturbance. Experimental studies with spotted hyenas show that the position of a bone fragment on a limb bone, combined with bone surface modification, can be used to identify a class of bone fragments that are minimally affected by carnivores and are thus the best indicators of spatial patterning resulting from human behavior. Limb-bone ends are moved significant distances, as are shaft fragments as a general class. However, middle-shaft portions of limb bones that preserve percussion marks from hammerstone breakage retain nearly the precise spatial position as originally discarded by hominids. Thus, any spatial analysis of bone, when carnivores are implicated as contributors or consumers at an archaeological site, should focus on middle-shaft portions of limb bones with percussion marks.
AB - Animal bones discarded by people are commonly subject to disturbance by carnivores. These carnivores are present throughout the world and include wolves, coyotes, hyenas, and many others. This disturbance not only modifies and destroys bone, but also moves many of the bone fragments away from their original position of discard. Intrasite spatial analyses of bone that seek patterns meaningful to human behavior thus need to subtract the effect of carnivore disturbance. Experimental studies with spotted hyenas show that the position of a bone fragment on a limb bone, combined with bone surface modification, can be used to identify a class of bone fragments that are minimally affected by carnivores and are thus the best indicators of spatial patterning resulting from human behavior. Limb-bone ends are moved significant distances, as are shaft fragments as a general class. However, middle-shaft portions of limb bones that preserve percussion marks from hammerstone breakage retain nearly the precise spatial position as originally discarded by hominids. Thus, any spatial analysis of bone, when carnivores are implicated as contributors or consumers at an archaeological site, should focus on middle-shaft portions of limb bones with percussion marks.
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U2 - 10.2307/282346
DO - 10.2307/282346
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0000194453
VL - 59
SP - 748
EP - 768
JO - American Antiquity
JF - American Antiquity
SN - 0002-7316
IS - 4
ER -