With National Science Foundation support, MS. Marcia-Anne Dobres will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will examine bone and antler artifacts from 16 archaeological sites from the Pyrenees region of France which date from the end of the last Ice Age. This wide variety of artifacts include tool types such as harpoons, needles, points and spear throwers. On a macro level she will describe the formal attributes of these tools: their size and conformation. Using microscopic techniques she will also attempt to reconstruct the processes by which they were made. Through study of resharpening and breakage she should be able to trace the functional history of individual objects. By comparison of sequential levels within a single site as well as roughly synchronic assemblages between sites she will attempt to set the use of these objects into a broader regional perspective and show how this pattern changed over time. The cultural achievements of Magdalenian and related peoples set the stage for the emergence of complex societies. The Magdalenians are responsible for the magnificent cave paintings in Southern France and adjacent regions of Spain. They developed specialized subsistence economies which focussed on seasonal resources such as salmon and they fabricated finely made bone objects. While many Magdalenian sites have been excavated no reseacher has looked in detail at bone working from a cross-site perspective. The goal of this work is not to understand bone working per se but rather use indicators such as variation in form and manufacturing technique to gain insight into Magdalenian social, subsistence and technological organization. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists. It will shed light on the emergence of complex societies and will assist in the training of an extremely promising student.
