Dear Oliver and All,

On tool-free bird butchery: a misspent youth in Appalachia confirms that
most wild birds come apart just as Oliver reports (breaking bones rather
than dismembering at joints), especially things in the
grouse-dove-chicken size range. Thanks to Gardar Gudmundsson of the
Archaeological Inst Iceland I have some short digital flim of an
Icelandic fisherman doing hands only dismemberment of puffins which I
can send to anyone interested. We are currently doing a Viking-medieval
collection from the Faroes that is full of puffin bones and Seth
Brewington will be doing a more complete butchery study, but so far the
answer is lots of mid-shaft spiral fractures and few cut marks. I
suspect that it may be sometimes hard to tell human vrs animal bird bone
breakage, but if you have a large enough collection any regularly
patterned tearing apart should tend to cluster these sorts of
biomechanical stress fractures in the same locus (humans tear apart,
carnivore jaws crush???). Certainly the Icelandic fishermen (who spend
less than 30 seconds per bird) have a system down that should leave
repeated marks in more or less the same places each time. Interesting
thread, hope this helps a bit.

  The promised digital fishbone (+seals) CD is now being mailed out
(thanks to Kate Krivogorskaya), so those interested should be getting
theirs soon. Let us know if there is more interest, these are easy to
make.

Best
Tom

Thomas H McGovern
Professor,
Dept of Anthropology Hunter College CUNY
Archaeology Coordinator,
CUNY Doctoral Program in Anthropology
Coordinator, North Atlantic Biocultural Organization


Address:
Anthropology Dept.
Hunter College
695 Park Ave. NYC 10021 USA
tel. 212 772 5410 fax. 212 772 5423
[log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Oliver Brown
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 8:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] tearing birds apart

Regarding patterns from tool-less butchering of birds, and having hunted
and
eaten a few during fieldwork:
- Using cutting tools for the kinds of birds I'm thinking of (medium
pigeons and
small ducks) strikes me as about as likely as doing the same for a bar
of
chocolate;
- the bird often comes apart by breaking at bones rather than joints as
there
seems to be weaker spots in the diaphysis than the ligaments etc. E.g. I
seem
to remember crested pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes) humeri breaking in the
middle
rather than separating from the scapula, coracoid, etc. (kind of like
how you
break the feet off small mammals across the ulna and tibia, so that you
can pull
the skin off the legs easier). Sorry that sounds a bit vague, but what
I'm
really meaning to suggest is that these might be the sort of patterns
that
would emerge across a reasonable sample size both archaeologically and
experimentally.

--
Oliver Brown
PhD candidate
Archaeology, A22, University of Sydney, 2006, NSW
lab:(02) 9036 5127 / mob: 0427 279 675 / hm: 9665 2073
>
> Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 22:41:44 -0400
> From: Seminario Relaciones Hombre-Fauna <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: bird in prehistoric sites
>
> hi!
> I would like to share the next idea. Last weeks I have been comment
with =
> colleague Stuart Fedel that the birds identified in prehistoric sites
com=
> monly does not show cultural marks (cut-marks, burn, etc.). However,
he s=
> ends this comment:
> "Last night, I saw something interesting. I was watching a DVD of a
litt=
> le-known movie from 1974, "The White Dawn." It's about 3 whalers who
are=
> stranded in the eastern Arctic in 1896 and live there with the local
Inu=
> it. In one scene, one of them goes goose-hunting with the native
people.=
> When they come back to the camp, he gives the killed geese to the
villa=
> ge leader. This man takes a goose, and 4 or 5 of the Inuit grab the
bird=
> and they all pull it apart. Obviously, this form of butchery will
leave=
> no cut marks. If Paleoindians behaved the same way, it may be very
diff=
> icult to demonstrate predation on birds in many cases.
>
> Stuart
>
>
> Finally, we thought that =E2=80=9Cslaughtering=E2=80=9D method could
be s=
> hows cracks, fractures o deformations on bone. Also, I consider that
it c=
> ould be applied to micromammals.
>
> Someone has seen something similar or have some data about this? Any
comm=
> ent are welcome.
>
> Thanks in advance=20

> --=20
> Eduardo Corona-M.
> Laboratorio de Arqueozoologia,
> Instituto Nacional de Antropolog=C3=ADa e Historia
> Moneda 16, Col. Centro.
> Mexico, 06060, D.F.
> Mexico.


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