Dear Carine
I found cut marks on a hyaena skull from a Late Iron Age site, called
Simunye, in Swaziland, southern Africa. The site dates between the 17th and
19th century AD. Swaziland is a small kingdom surrounded by South Africa
and Mozambique.
The cutmarks were located on the parietal. I also found,
unexpectedly, two small bovidae tali that was part of a divining set. These
bones were not easily discarded, and rarely found in the southern African
archaeological record.
The reference;
Badenhorst, S. & Plug, I. 2002. Appendix: Animal remains from recent
excavations at a Late Iron Age site, Simunye, Swaziland. Southern African
Humanities 14:45-50.
The archaeology of the site;
Ohinata, F. 2002. The beginning of 'Tsonga' archaeology: excavations at
Simunye, north-eastern Swaziland. Southern African Humanities 14:23-44.
I recall reading something about hyaenas in the work on the San/Bushmen of
the Botswana Kalahari. I think there was strong resistence against eating
hyaenas (not surprising!).
There's not a lot of evidence for hyaenas (both spotted and brown) in
southern Africa, and have only been found at a handful of sites. See
distribution patterns;
Plug, I. & Badenhorst, S. 2001. The distribution of macromammals in southern
Africa over the past 30 000 years. Transvaal Museum Monograph no. 12.
Transvaal Museum: Pretoria.
If you're having trouble finding the references in France, contact me. I can
then sent you copies.
Best wishes,
Mr. Shaw Badenhorst
Ph.D Candidate
Department of Archaeology
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Drive
Burnaby, British Columbia
V5A 1S6
Canada
email: [log in to unmask]
www.sfu.ca/archaeology/dept/gradstu/gradstu/index.HTM
Original Message:
-----------------
From: Tomé Carine [log in to unmask]
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 14:45:06 +0100
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ZOOARCH] hyena skinning
Dear all,
In the faunal material of the syrian site Tell Mastuma (Iron Age), I
have found an hyena skull showing cut marks of disarticulation (on
occipital condyles) but also several skinning cut marks around the
muzzle. If someone have other references on hyena skinning (or on
possible use of hyena skin) please let me know.
For a colleague of mine, I'm also looking for bibliographical reference
of lion's remains in Near/Middle East.
Thank you in advance.
A very happy new year!
Carine
--
Carine Tomé
Laboratoire d'archéozoologie du CEPAM - CNRS
250 rue Albert Einstein
06560 VALBONNE
Tél: 33 (0)4 93 95 41 55
Fax: 33 (0)4 93 65 29 05
Email: [log in to unmask] / [log in to unmask]
Site: http://carine.tome.free.fr
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