| Entry: | Priority tour 1/8/2012:
The only units the faunal team had to give feedback on were 20215 and 20232 from TPC. The former had 30 X finds recorded as worked bone, of which only two (X17 and X28) were definitely worked and two others were *possibly* worked (x23 and X30). 20232 had to worked bone X finds of which X4 was worked and X6 was not worked.
The identification of worked bone in the trenches seems to be a bit of an issue: it can be difficult to tell the difference between worked and bones which have been fracture when they are fresh. Erring on the side of caution and X finding everything likely makes extra work for everyone (field & finds teams) and leads to disappointment for the excavator who is told 'sorry, that's just a splinter!'. What is the solution?
With respect to the remainder of the bone from these units, unfortunately they are affected by a problem which has affected the previous units (priority and otherwise) from TPC, that is the presence of a substantial admixture of post Neolithic pottery. This renders the recording of bone from these deposits pointless and so these units have not been examined. This decision has caused some debate and it has been suggested that we should reconsider our decision as 'the taphonomy would be useful'. We have reconsidered and our answer remains that there is no usable information to be gained from analysing this material and it is not a justifiable use of project time and resources to do so.
We could recover taphonomic information, but what will it mean? Would an abraded bone indicate a reworked midden within a Neolithic context? A Neolithic bone from a midden reworked in the Chalcolithic? A Chalcolithic or later bone affected by hillwash? What would the species present tell us if we don't know for sure what date they are? Will a large sheep bone indicate a Chalcolithic domesticate animal or a Neolithic wild animal?
What I have seen many times is that people tend to ovelook that a bone is a bone, ie is not intrinsically dateable. Unless you want to use C14 and if anyone wants to suggest to Alex Bayliss when she arrives that she date material from a mixed context, let me know first and I will bring popcorn to watch the entertainment, or maybe duck and cover... |
