Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Bone Tools


I had a personal revelation, or spark of understanding today. Archaeologists had noted that large tracts of Nebraska really did not have any decent stone resources for making necessary tools. A lot of the stone was carried in from remote locations. As I considered this, something hit me. The plains, before the white man, was a sea of buffalo. Buffalo, deer, elk, beaver, etc., provided food, clothing, shelter, and another natural resource...bone. Bone was considered the "plastic" of the stone age in its ability to be shaped, by reduction, into a multitude of items - knives, awls, needles, fishhooks, fleshers, spearheads, etc. The oldest known bone tool found in North America was a carabou bone flesher dated at 27,000 BP. Being a flintknapper, you tend to think in terms of stone use...kind of like the adage.."when you're a hammer, everythings a nail." Nature provided even in the absence of prime stone resources. The lower picture shows some of the possible uses from my tool kit. Top: buffalo jaw war club, the 'hinge' section was removed to form a point. From the left: elk scapula knife, similar to archaeology finds in Nebraska; a rib and leg bone knife; two wedges, for splitting wood; four awls from leg bone and ulna; two bone arrowheads; fishhook; misc. needles; leg bone pressure flaker for flintknapping, based on archaeology find.

5 comments:

Albert A Rasch said...

Mark,

Thanks for another fascinating post. I still haven't gotten to the bull roarers, the Mrs' car sprung an oil leak, but I should have that squared away by tomorrow.

Are you going to do a post on actually working bone? I would like to see the process to reduce bone to an arrowhead.

Regards,
Albert A Rasch
The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles
Proud Member of Outdoor Bloggers Summit
Southeast Regional OBS Coordinator

Unknown said...

great posting,i featured bone tools on some of my vids,ive been working with bone for sometime now,and im impressed how bone works...
one question though on a bone knife say a scapula how do you acheive a sharp edge?thanks grimbo.

Fenlander said...

Hi Mark, Nice work again. Do you use deer toe bones to make your fish hooks of something else?

Mark said...

Thanx for checking out the site. I will do some posts on working bone, making fishhooks, related tools in the coming week(s).

Anonymous said...

Cool! I am presently making stuff from an old bone found in the garden, googled around, here I am. Horn, as opposed to antler,is another probable, along with good old wood. Bone: the first ReUse Project!