From These Bare Bones

Raw Materials and the Study of Worked Osseous Objects

Alice Choyke, Sonia O'Connor, Sonia O'Connor

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781782972129
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Archäologie

A fundamental component of the study of worked osseous objects is the identification of the raw materials chosen to make them. In archaeological contexts many objects become degraded to the point where identification is very difficult and the way in which these materials decay during burial and upon excavation can vary greatly. Correct identification is crucial to the investigation of objects, their conservation and future curation. Above all, understanding raw material selection aids our understanding of human-animal interaction in the past both on pragmatic and symbolic levels since the choices made by artisans vary by cultural tradition as well as availability.
The 20 papers presented here explore a wealth of information pertaining to the use of osseous materials over the long period of human craftsmanship and tool manufacture by exploring several key themes:
· Raw material selection and curation within tool types
· Social aspects of raw material selection
· New methods of materials identification
It is demonstrated that the issue of raw material identification has numerous implications for conservation work, reproduction of objects, the physical characteristics of the tool or ornament, availability of raw materials, the materials chosen for procurement and the cultural reasons that lie behind the choice of raw materials from particular species and skeletal elements to produce planned tool and ornament types. Together, these papers emphasize the need for confident and correct materials identification and demonstrate that functionality is by no means the only, nor necessarily the most important, factor in the selection of osseous raw materials for the fabrication of tools and other cultural objects.

Social Aspects of Raw Material Selection

CHAPTER 10

The Materiality of Production: Exploring Variability and Choice in the Production of Palaeolithic Portable Art made in Antler and Bone

Rebecca Farbstein

This paper focuses on the technical and material attributes of an assemblage of late Magdalenian portable art from two sites in south-central France, Montastruc and Courbet. A methodology called chaîne opératoire, which has traditionally been used to study so-called “functional”, rather than symbolic material culture, is employed to study the materials Palaeolithic artists chose and the ways that they modified them. Using this methodology facilitates new analysis of antiquarian assemblages that pose analytical challenges because of the lack of contextual information that survives about the portable art. This analysis reveals how craftspeople attributed value and socio-aesthetic meaning to these materials through their modification of animal bones into both figurative and non-figurative art, and contributes to a better understanding of the similarities and differences between the artistic and technical traditions at these two roughly contemporaneous and adjacent sites.

Keywords
Palaeolithic; Magdalenian; portable art; organic materials; chaîne opératoire.

Introduction

Much Palaeolithic portable art was discovered in the 19th Century, when excavation methodologies were less refined than they are today. Because many archaeological sites were excavated without regard to stratigraphy, it can be difficult to build detailed chrono-stratigraphic contexts for the artefacts found in the 1800s. Despite these challenges, Palaeolithic portable art offers clear evidence that Pleistocene hunter-gatherers were technical and creative innovators. They produced both figurative and non-figurative art in a range of animal raw materials, including antler, bone and ivory. This paper focuses on these technical and material attributes of an assemblage of late Magdalenian portable art from two sites in south-central France, Montastruc and Courbet. While the limited contextual information that was recorded during initial excavations at these sites remains a challenge when studying these assemblages, a new approach to this art will be advanced in this paper. It focuses on the materials Palaeolithic artists chose, and the ways craftspeople attributed value and socio-aesthetic meaning to these materials through their modification of animal bones into both figurative and non-figurative art. This approach may reveal new insight into these challenging assemblages of late Palaeolithic art, with the potential to better distinguish between the artistic and technical traditions at these two roughly contemporaneous and adjacent sites.

Aims and scope of the paper

To date, “technical” research on late Palaeolithic art has focused extensively on the “hardware” of production (Brühl 2005; de Beaune 1999; Klíma 1997); that is, techniques have been studied sensu stricto and without explicit or comprehensive consideration of their social and aesthetic contexts and consequences. Some archaeologists have also implemented microscopic analysis of artefacts to recover the techniques and tools associated with the production of portable art (d’Errico 1992; Fritz 1999; White 1997). This paper advances the study of Palaeolithic organic technologies in two significant ways. Like the aforementioned approaches, this research applies a technical methodology that supplements the conventional, stylistic approaches to Upper Palaeolithic art that focus on its appearance and subject matter. However, this paper also explicitly situates these technologies within their social contexts by using a socialised chaîne opératoire methodology (after Leroi-Gourhan (1964), later reconsidered by Dobres (2000, 2010) and Farbstein (2010, 2011). Drawing upon the theoretical foundations of “object biographies” and “life histories” (Gosden and Marshall 1999), this paper aims to consider Palaeolithic technological choices, including raw material selection and material modification, as meaningful social practices (see Choyke (2010) for another view on how animal materials can gain social and symbolic meaning). By socialising prehistoric technology, following Dobres (2000), new insight into the complex socio-technical decisions enacted by Palaeolithic craftspeople working in different social contexts can be gained.

This paper focuses on two major considerations related to the modification of animal bone to make art. The first analysis compares bone selection strategies and overall modification choices at Montastruc and Courbet, offering insight into social variability and diversity between sites purported to be culturally contiguous. The second analysis, which focuses on a small sub-assemblage of unusual bone and antler art, offers insight into the complex social and material life history of bone and antler and the objects made in these materials.

Beyond aesthetics and iconography

This research moves beyond the persistent interest in the superficial qualities of Palaeolithic art including iconography or apparent “style” as discussed by Farbstein (2010). Although research into the appearance and style of Palaeolithic art has been fruitful (Bosinski 1991; Cohen 2003; Gvozdover 1989; Svoboda 1997), it often explicitly or implicitly isolates symbolic material culture from the overall archaeological assemblage and leads to artificial divisions between artefacts that may have been made and used alongside each other. These divisions are particularly problematic when studying assemblages such as the late Magdalenian ones that are the focus of this paper, because much of the “art” was made on weaponry such as spear-throwers or harpoons; the “functional,” “artistic” and “symbolic” significance of these objects were likely intertwined and may not be distinguishable. For the purposes of this paper, “art” was identified when a representational (human or animal) or decorative (geometric or patterned) motif or image was identified on an object. In some instances, these images were made on objects that may also have held a purpose as a weapon or other tool. In other cases, the artefact may have no discernable “function.” Re-conceptualizing artists as skilled technicians, and acknowledging that the individuals who made Palaeolithic art probably also contributed to the production of non-symbolic artefacts, is one productive step towards bridging the artificial divide between “symbolic” and “functional” material culture that often exists in Palaeolithic scholarship.

Material culture, including art, gains meaning in myriad possible ways, many of which may not be immediately apparent. Art is “constitutive of or expressive of the identity of a group” (Myers 2005, 91), and this social identity may not be expressed exclusively in appearance. Both the anthropology of technology (Lechtman 1977; Lemonnier 1993; Schiffer 2001) and materiality theory (Miller 2005) assert that the production of artefacts, including art, is socially meaningful. Individuals and societies may attribute meaning to things by making objects in certain ways and by selecting certain materials. Similarly, Latour (1991) and Gell (1999) highlight the social significance of material objects, including their physicality and how they are embedded in daily routines. The “object biography” approach also acknowledges how material culture gains meaning, and how its meaning is transformed throughout its “life history” (Gosden and Marshall 1999) from material acquisition to production, use and, ultimately, discard. This research aims to integrate these important theoretical concepts with quantitatively rigorous chaîne opératoire methodology, following Leroi-Gourhan (1964), to build a comprehensive technological, and material, approach for studying Palaeolithic art. Importantly, this process demands that scholars move beyond analysis of isolated, individually striking artefacts to instead study comprehensive assemblages of Palaeolithic art.

Chaîne Opératoire in Action

The physical chaîne opératoire is initiated when a material is acquired and/or transported from its find spot to the location of its modification (Fig. 10.1). This initial stage of the chaîne opératoire immediately implicates one or more human agents into the life history of a material. Although an individual or a group may plan the acquisition and/or transportation of a material far in advance, the tangible remnants of most chaînes opératoires are perceptible in the physical and material qualities of an artefact. Thus, materials and choices associated with their acquisition and modification are of fundamental importance within this methodology. These initial steps in the chaîne opératoire are also an important part of an object’s life history or biography, and these stages of production are one focus of this paper.

Figure 10.1 Schematic chaîne opératoire, highlighting the way social considerations influence the physical and material choices made by artisans at work.

Chaîne opératoire has most frequently been used to study lithic assemblages and other “functional” material culture, e.g. by Pigeot (1990) and Sellet (1993). However, some archaeologists have adapted this methodology to study symbolic Palaeolithic material culture. Marcia-Anne Dobres (2000, 2010), in particular, has worked to expand archaeological conceptions of technology and develop the potential of chaîne opératoire methodology. Dobres’ work highlights the link between tangible, visible technological variances and the social choices that underlie the actions that give rise to the production of material culture. Archaeologists who adopt an “object biography” approach raise similar considerations (Gosden and Marshall 1999). The chaîne opératoire is one component of an artefact’s biography or life history, and both approaches acknowledge the interlinked physical, social, and symbolic transformations that an artefact endures throughout its use.

This paper employs the chaîne opératoire to distinguish socio-technical variability between purportedly related sites. This aim of the paper is contextualised within a long history of Palaeolithic archaeology that has studied variances between sites and the related diverse material culture. For instance, Sieveking (1987a, 49) notes the difference between the widespread Magdalenian IV tradition of three-dimensional carving compared to the distinct preference in the later Magdalenian V for complex surface engraving. Sieveking couches these differences as typological categories, although they are fundamentally technical and relate to production sequences and socio-technical practice. Because of persistent attention to either the appearance or typology of material culture, or to the exclusively “physical” components of technology, the socio-technical characteristics of much Upper Palaeolithic material culture, particularly portable art, has not yet been rigorously assessed. Changes in material culture production and technique imply cultural changes that may have taken place over both short and long time-spans. Variability identified in symbolic or artistic assemblages can relate not just to the aesthetics and overall appearance of art but can also be fundamentally linked to the production of art and artists’ engagement with raw materials.

Once specific technical traditions and chaînes opératoires have been identified, it can remain difficult to distinguish the causes of variability observed in assemblages from two or more distinct time periods, or two or more distinct regions (Crémades 1994). Environmental factors, temporal changes, or regional variances may each contribute to this variability, and it can be difficult to distinguish between these variables. This paper therefore attempts to advance the scope of the chaîne opératoire approach by comparing art assemblages on a much smaller scale. Focusing closely on a single, circumscribed region of occupation and comparing technological traditions between nearby, contemporaneous sites may increase our chances of distinguishing the stimuli, be they material, social, aesthetic or technological, behind the various art traditions and the emergence of distinct chaînes opératoires in each context.

This research incorporates both micro and macroscopic analyses, which facilitates a detailed understanding of the physical and social transformations that occurred during the life history of each object. Macroscopic analysis of organic materials such as bone and antler allows overall assessment of how the artist either preserved and worked within the confines of the natural material, o...