Abstract:

Samuel Vaneeckhout – Juho-Antti Junno – Anna-Kaisa Puputti – Tiina Äikäs, Prehistoric burned bone: use or refuse – results of a bone combustion experiment

Finnish prehistoric subsistence is often studied through the refuse fauna, which mainly consists of burned mammal bones. Most of these studies have provided us with the conclusion that during the Stone Age, subsistence strategy was based on large scale seal hunting. We performed a bone combustion experiment to evaluate whether the percentage of seal bones in prehistoric refuse faunas accurately represent the role of the seal in past subsistence economy. The results of these combustion experiments and further bone structural and densitometric analyses clearly demonstrate that the better preservation of seal bones probably considerably affects its representation in archaeological animal bone assemblages. According to our analyses there are clear differences between taxons in the burning and preservation capacities of the long bones. The fact that seal bone does not burn as good, and preserves better than bear and elk bones, might explain why we do find more burned seal bones from archaeological sites.