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Toward the Definition of Criteria for the Recognition of Artificial Bone Alterations1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Richard E. Morlan
Richard E. Morlan*
Affiliation:
Archaeological Survey of Canada, National Museum of Man, Ottawa, Ontario K1A OM8, Canada
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Abstract

Cutting, fracturing, flaking, and polishing of bones and other osseous materials may in some instances be interpreted as evidence of former human activity. Such interpretations must avoid confusion with the wide variety of natural processes that alter bones. Reliable criteria are prerequisite to sound inferences based on bone, regardless of whether they have been redeposited or recovered from primary assemblages. Criteria must be defined by means of actualistic studies (neotaphonomy) and experiments that demonstrate causal relationships between patterns of alteration and the processes that produce them. The criteria can be empoyed in the interpretation of fossil bones (paleotaphonomy) on the basis of uniformitarian principles. At the present time, such relationships are relatively well understood in the case of cut marks on bones, and modest progress has been made in investigating fractured and flaked bones. Polished bones are little understood and difficult to interpret.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , September 1984 , pp. 160 - 171
Copyright
University of Washington

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Footnotes

1

Presented at the symposium “Taphonomic Analysis and Interpretation in North American Pleistocene Archaeology” held in Fairbanks, Alaska; April 1982.

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