Research project Retrieving Osseous Biographies

This project aims to investigate bone and antler artefacts assemblages in order to increase knowledge about manufacturing processes, traditions, knowledge transmission and social contact networks among the hunter-fisher-gatherer groups of the Baltic Sea region. 

Osseous production has generally been understudied in relation to, for example, lithic technology. This partly due to the fact that preserved osseous material from the Stone Age is unusual, but in the eastern Baltic Sea area there are several exceptions. These unique collections have not been accessible to wider academic circles due to political and language barriers. Likewise, there are several understudied bone and antler objects in the collections of the National History Museum, in Stockholm (https://samlingar.shm.se/). Many of the objects have been typologically attributed to different parts of the Stone Age, but large parts of these finds are actually undated. Bones and antler partly consist of organic material and this enables different types of laboratory analyses, for example direct AMS radiocarbon dating. Bones, however, also contain biodata about animals and environmental conditions (availability/selection of species, individuals and bone types), information that can provide insights into human choices, knowledge transmission, trade and exchange of objects or raw materials.

Animal remains and artifacts made from these bones may be regarded as having active agency, carrying economic, social and ritual meanings and reflecting various properties of animal and human life histories. However, the organic component makes them sensitive to various taphonomic processes, in contrast to lithics. It is these properties, however, that enable other types of observations such as direct traces the bones for example, cut marks or fracture patterns but above all taphonomic analyses, i.e., studies about the deposition.