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Dolores Archaeological Program- Bone Tool Manufacturing Kit
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 Bone tool kit

BONE TOOL MANUFACTURING KIT

Excavated at Windy Wheat Hamlet (5MT4644) in 1979 during the Dolores Archaeological Program, this oblong pot from around 800 AD was found associated with unmodified bones, shaped bones, and stone tools for shaping them.

About 15 to 20 people lived at Windy Wheat Hamlet between AD 750 to AD 820 during the Pueblo I period. Its three pit structures (partly-underground houses) were occupied at different times. The tool kit came from a room with a hearth and storage pits, dated to the final period of occupation. 

A specialist toolmaker probably owned this kit. Ancestral Puebloans made awls, needles, scrapers, jewelry, and game pieces from the long bones of deer, sheep and turkeys (and occasionally other animals). 

 

Windy Wheat Hamlet DAP 000714

Bone Tool Kit in situ

CONTEXT is everything!

The tool kit was found in situ, inside a stone-lined pit. In situ means it was found in the same spot where the maker left it hundreds of years ago. 

Finding artifacts in situ is very important for archaeologists. If we found these items scattered on the surface and out of context, we would have never known that all the pieces went together to form a kit.

 

CONTENTS
1: Fragmentary animal bone: 78.1.5MT4644.FAU.901.4.47
2: Fragmentary animal bone: 78.1.5MT4644.FAU.901.4.46
3: Stock bone: 78.1.5MT4644.FAU.901.1.42
4: Unworked bone: 78.1.5MT4644.FAU.884.3.39
5: Stock bone: 78.1.5MT4644.FAU.884.2.40
6: Ceramic feather box fragments: 78.1.5MT4644.CER.884.14.35

(A hammerstone and a flaked cobble, not seen here, were also found in the pit.)

ARTIFACT GALLERIES:

Bone Tool Kit Contents: CERAMIC

Bone Tool Kit Contents: BONES

Bone Tool Kit Contents: STONES

Slide show: BONE FLAKERSSlide show: BONE KNIVES
 Slide show:
BONE TUBES		Slide show:
BONE SCRAPERS		Slide show:
BONE NEEDLES

Slide show:
BONE AWLS

Slide show: 
BONE PINS

TO LEARN MORE:

  • Brisbin, Joel M. 
    1984  "Excavations at Windy Wheat Hamlet (Site 5MT4644), a Pueblo I Habitation.".   Dolores Archaeological Program Technical Reports DAP-108. Final report submitted to the Bureau of Reclamation, Upper Colo. Region, Salt Lake City, in compliance with Contract No. 8-07-40-SO562. (PDF available)
  • Bullock, Margaret E.
    1992  "Morphological and Functional Analysis of Pueblo III Anasazi Bone Tool Assemblage from Southwestern Colorado." Master’s Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman. On file at the Anasazi Heritage Center.
  • Jefferies, Richard W. 
    1997 "Middle Archaic Bone Pins: Evidence of Mid-Holocene Regional-Scale Social Groups in the Southern Midwest." American Antiquity 62(3): 464-487.

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Last updated: 10-12-2011