Pointed bone tool technology in Southern Africa

Abstract: Stone Age societies are understood largely in terms of their technology. The way in which we frame our research and understanding of these past societies is based almost exclusively on stone tools and ceramics, yet these materials represent only a small percentage of recent hunter-gatherer paraphernalia and may not necessarily reflect the complexity of cultural adaptations and technological achievements of the past. Pointed bone tools are present in the archaeological record of almost every ancient society and time-period; yet, for various reasons, they seldom have been afforded the same attention as their stone equivalents. Unless all aspects of past technological systems are acknowledged and understood we risk providing a distorted image of the past. This theGis begins to explore the variable and diverse functions of pointed bone artefacts in southern Africa during the Later Stone Age from approximately 18 000 years ago until a few hundred years ago when the hunter-gatherer societies practicing a stone age economy came under the influence of immigrant Iron Age farmers. A comprehensive study of bone tools has the potential to provide information about past societies that is simply not available from stone tools and ceramics. In this thesis I look at one aspect of past technology, namely pointed bone tools, that has seldom formed the focus of research. I present the results of a metrical analysis and three use-trace analyses (micro-residue, usewear and macrofracture), each designed to provide complementary information about the past function/s of pointed bone tools. Over 300 tools are examined from 12 archaeological sites. Evidence presented here shows that while manufacturing techniques remain relatively constant throughout the last 18 000 years, greater functional variability among bone points is evident during the last 6000 years and largely parallels the sustained focus on hunting smaller animals. Changes in bone tool form and function do not correlate neatly with lithic technology oscillations or environmental fluctuations and seem to occur during rather than at the boundaries of stone tool technocomplexes. Evidence that bone points were reused after they fractured suggests the importance attached to these tools and raw material. Finally, a range of different arrow forms are recognised that may have the potential to provide an avenue for relative dating.D.Litt. et Phil. (Anthropology