Primitive Bone Fracturing: A Method of Research

Abstract

AbstractA preliminary study of the form and fracture patterns of sheep metatarsals from Jaguar Cave is used to illustrate a method for the quantitative analysis of primitive bone fracturing techniques. Criteria of form, fracture, and function are defined and weighted, on the basis of experiments with green bone, and the aid of computers is enlisted to process the archaeological specimens via these criteria. The data is searched for: a. the definition of a technique of intentional fracture, b. the formation of classes of intentionally fractured and retouched bone fragments, and c. the identification of statistically perfect tools and not-tools, determined by higher or lower correlations of weighted sums. Conclusions are drawn from the analysis of the Jaguar Cave bone and bone from other early collections. The application of linear decision theory to the analysis of bone fractures was first attempted in a Ph.D. dissertation (Sadek-Kooros 1966), and a shorter version of the present paper was read at the Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, on May 2, 1969.