An experimental study of the patterned nature of anthropogenic bone breakage and its impact on bone surface modification frequencies

A way to break bones? The weight of intuitiveness

“…Archaeological and ethnographical studies focusing on the distribution of percussion marks along long bone diaphyses have revealed the existence of preferentially impacted areas (Binford 1981;Blasco et al 2013;Masset et al 2016;Moclán and Domínguez-Rodrigo 2018;Vettese et al 2017). The comparison between these results and ours underlines the influence of bone shape on some systematic practices of extant and past hunter-gatherers ( Figure 13).…”

“…Various researchers have stressed that the aim of mastering percussion breakage was to reduce the number of blows required to remove all the marrow from the medullary cavity (Capaldo and Blumenschine 1994;Galán et al 2009;Moclán and Domínguez-Rodrigo 2018). For this reason, it was expected that novice experimenters would average more blows than experts.…”

“…For several decades, percussion marks and long bone breakage methods have been extensively studied (Boulestin 1999;Capaldo and Blumenschine 1994;Fisher 1995;Gifford-Gonzalez 2018;Patou-Mathis 1985;White 1992). Since the beginning of the twentieth century and up until now, archaeological experiments on long bone breakage have been carried out to characterize percussion marks and their location (e.g.,: Blasco et al 2014;Blumenschine and Selvaggio 1988;Brugal and Defleur 1989;Galán et al 2009;Martin 1910;Moclán and Domínguez-Rodrigo 2018;Noe-Nygaard 1977;Patou-Mathis 1985;Pickering and Egeland 2006). Fracture patterns have also been extensively studied on different states of bone preservation: fresh, dry, weathered, fossilized but also heated, frozen, boiled (Alhaique 1997;Karr and Outram 2012;Lacroix 2011;Outram 2002;Villa and Mahieu 1991).…”

“…Some recent studies have focused on the distribution of percussion marks on long bones to approach the subsistence behaviours of past hominins (Blasco et al 2013;Masset et al 2016;Moclán and Domínguez-Rodrigo 2018;Vettese et al 2017). One of these studies highlighted for the first time a pattern of non-random bone breakage and interpreted it as a product of butchery traditions among Neanderthals (Blasco et al 2013).…”

“…The definition of a butchery tradition is a systematic and counterintuitive pattern shared by a same group. The immediate apprehension of the non-trained butcher to break a bone is influenced by numerous variables, including anatomical constraints (Blasco et al 2013;Moclán and Domínguez-Rodrigo 2018). Individuals who regularly break long bones acquire an empirical approach and develop specific skills that enhance efficiency (Pickering and Egeland 2006).…”