Technology on Bone and Antler Industries: A Relevant Methodology for Characterizing Early Post-Glacial Societies (9 th -8 th Millenium BC)
Résumé
After numerous finds of bone and antler tools during the 20th century in peat bog sites of the North-European plains, dated to the Ancylus Lake period, it became clear that the usual typological approaches applied to this material (Childe 1931, Clark 1936, Kozlowski et al. 1977) could no longer provide new elements for characterizing Early Holocene hunter societies (Julien 1992). Since this material represents the most common raw material used with flint for manufacturing tools during this Mesolithic period, it seemed necessary to apply the technological approach, as it has been developed by French prehistorians for the lithic industry (Tixier 1967, 1996, Inizan et al. 1999, Pelegrin et al. 1988). By studying bone and antler industry of Northern Europe, dated to the Early Mesolithic (9th to 8th mill. BC), different technical "traditions" could be identified on a large scale in the form of technocomplexes (Clarke 1968:357). In the sense intended here, these refer to the distribution in time and space of sites that have provided assemblages presenting, in a combined and interactive analysis, common patterns of techniques, morphological types, and anatomical blanks, as well as common patterns of change in the relative frequency of tool types, all within a defined environment.
