Experimental program on bone technology of the north of Tierra del Fuego: Contributions to the study of production and use-wear traces

Abstract

This paper presents an Experimental Program developed to identify, describe and differentiate the production traces from use-wear traces on bone artifacts, through the application of functional analysis framework. For this purpose, several types of guanaco bone tools present in northern sites of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego (South America) were replicated. The results enable us to: 1) differentiate and define the microscopic traces related to the manufacture techniques implemented in the production sequence: scraping, abrasion and sawing as well as 2) identify and describe the use-wear traces of different resources (wood, hide and bark). The results have allowed to identify the manufacture traces that were formed in each stage of the production process as well as the use-wear traces of different working procedures. Likewise, the data obtained have enabled us to identify the differences in the use of dry and fresh bones, their effectiveness in different labour processes and their respectively diagnostic traces. Thus, we attained a regional frame of reference to study bone technology carried out by hunter-gatherer societies that occupied the Fuegian steppe during the late Holocene.