Butchery

Butchery is one of the oldest human activities that can be archaeologically traced. Traditionally, butchery was inferred from the spatial association of stone tools and bones in archaeological sites. However, Binford questioned this assumption, and the recent application of modern taphonomic techniques to the early East African Olduvai Bed I sites has proved that the assumption is unwarranted. Experiments and ethnographic observation show that butchery leaves physical traces on bones in the form of cut marks and percussion marks. Cut marks show a diversity of forms: filleting marks created through defleshing and eviscerating, scraping marks generated when removing tissues (meat scraps, perios-tium) strongly adhered to the bone, and chopping marks produced when disarticulating long limb bones or cutting through tendons and ligaments.

Location of cut marks on bones is informative of each of these butchering activities. Evisceration of

Carcasses produces cut marks on the ventral side of ribs and vertebral bodies. Tongue removal leaves cut marks on the lower end of the lingual mandibular ramus. Defleshing of the axial skeleton produces cut marks on ribs and vertebral arcs, bodies, and apophyses. Removal of flesh from pelvises leaves abundant marks on the ischium and ilium. Removal of flesh from scapulae produces long cut marks on the scapular blade parallel to the axis of the bone. Dismembering of the scapula from the humerus produces cut marks on the neck of this element. Marks on epiphyses from long limb bones and on carpal and tarsal bones are the result of disarticulation. Marks on the near-epiphyseal sections of long limb bones can be produced both during defleshing and dismembering. Only the exact location of marks on these sections (craniocaudal and lateral-mesial) can provide more information to reconstruct which behavior was responsible for their occurrence. Filleting of large muscle packages produces cut marks on the shafts (namely, mid-shafts) of long limb bones.

Frequencies of cut marks, as well as their anatomical location (element and section), are also crucial to reconstruct strategies of carcass acquisition. Experiments reproducing early access to fully fleshed carcasses and late access to abandoned felid kills, reproducing homi-nid hunting and passive scavenging behaviors, have shown a very distinctive pattern of cut mark frequency and anatomical location in both scenarios. Scavenging is reflected in most cut marks occurring in higher frequencies in distal limb bones and on long bone ends as a result of removing the marginal scraps of flesh that survived carnivore initial consumption of carcasses. Carnivores pull flesh off from carcasses leaving most mid-shafts scrap-free, which explains why the surviving scraps are found on the ends (epiphyses and nearepiphyses), reflected in the location of cut marks. In this situation, humeri and femora rarely bear cut marks, and never bear them on their mid-shafts.

Having access to fully fleshed carcasses, in contrast, is reflected by humeri and femora showing the highest frequency of cut marks, very closely followed by tibiae and radii. In this case, mid-shaft fragments are the most cut-marked bone sections, as a result of cutting through the meat that overlies them. This is a clear reflection of hominid butchering behavior, not just random scarring of bones with stone tools. The number of cut marks on the bones does not necessarily reflect the number of strokes made by the butcher; rather, cut marks occur most frequently on specific bone sections because these sections are the most exposed to the stone tool or because the flesh on these sections is more difficult to remove. Cut marks appear more frequently on certain loci of bones because flesh is more strongly attached to their surfaces (e. g., linea aspera of femora). This shows that cut mark occurrence on bones is the combined result of three elements: the butcher’s skill, bone surface exposure to the stone tool during butchery, and distribution of flesh on bone. These three characteristics, especially the last two, are substantially different in scenarios of butchery of fleshed carcasses (obtained through primary access) and defleshed carcasses (obtained through passive scavenging from felid kills in Africa). Therefore, the contrasting results in cut mark distributions in each scenario should come as no surprise.

Bone breakage for marrow extraction is one of the final butchery processes. It leaves traces in the form of percussion marks, very wide percussion notches, and oblique breakage planes with acute angles. Assuming an assemblage in which humans broke open all bones, percussion marks will be found on between 10% and 30% of all long limb bone fragments, and there will be one notch every 6-7 specimens. Notches created by humans are varied. Complete notches are the most abundant. Double overlapping and double opposing notches are represented in much lower frequencies than in carnivore-broken assemblages. Any assemblage created as a result of hominid butchery should exhibit a combination of the above physical attributes resulting from the modification of bones during the butchery process.