7,000-Year-Old Deer Bones Reveal Secrets of Ancient Neolithic Tool Manufacturing

Deer projectile tip (Cervus elaphus) analyzed in the study. Researchers have discovered that early Neolithic groups at the Coro Trasito site in the Pyrenees utilized specific bone selection strategies for toolmaking, particularly favoring deer for projectile tips. This insight was gained through an innovative combination of archaeozoological, use-wear, and paleoproteomic analyses, providing a deeper understanding of the relationship between tool function and animal species selection. Credit: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)

Neolithic societies at Coro Trasito favored deer for making projectile tips, indicating a nuanced approach to species selection in their toolmaking practices.

New research led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and CSIC reveals that the earliest Neolithic groups to settle in the Pyrenean site of Coro Trasito used species selection strategies to manufacture their bone tools and chose deer for the projectile tips. The researchers obtained these findings using an innovative combination of methods that had never been applied in a Neolithic site before.

Innovative Analytical Techniques and Findings

The study, recently published in the journal PLoS ONE, investigated the relationship between the species selected for the manufacturing of artifacts and their function by applying archaeozoological, use-wear, and paleoproteomic analyses to some twenty ancient Neolithic bone artifacts found at Coro Trasito, a site in the Central Pyrenees located 1,548 meters above sea level.

Very few studies have combined use-wear, archaeozoology, and paleoproteomics in archaeological material, and this is the first to do so in bone artifacts from the ancient Neolithic. “This combination has made it possible to discover nuances that would otherwise go unnoticed and to add new layers of knowledge by evaluating the same data from multiple perspectives,” explains Maria Saña, UAB researcher and coordinator of the study.

Illustration of the mass spectrometry analysis graph that has allowed the taxonomic identification of the species (cervids or goats) of the tools analyzed. Credit: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)

Species Selection and Cultural Significance

The analyses showed that the groups that inhabited the site 7,000 years ago chose sheep and goat bones for the production of bone tips to handle vegetables, but also used cervid bones (deer and roe deer) for a wider variety of artifacts. For the projectile tips identified, they chose deer bones.

In contrast to other studies based on the morphological study of artifacts, which suggest that sheep and goats were the species most commonly used in the production of bone tools, the study found that deer as well as sheep and goats were more equally selected for tool manufacturing. This greater species balance observed at Coro Trasito and the use of only deer bones for projectile tips leads the researchers to consider that this animal may have played a prominent role in ancient Neolithic society.

“Obtaining long bones from deer, probably through hunting, requires more effort than using long bones from domesticated animals. This is particularly interesting because of the large number of cervid bone tools identified compared to the number of cervid observed in the untouched bone deposits. This selection could be due, in part, to the properties of the bone, but also to the beliefs and values associated with this animal species,” says Jakob Hansen, first author of the study and predoctoral researcher in the Department of Prehistory at the UAB. “In any case, further research at other sites with the same combination of methods that we have applied here is required to explore this hypothesis.”

Enhanced Understanding Through Integrated Methods

The researchers highlight the methodological strength of the study. Previously, based on the study of morphological characteristics, deer bone artefacts had been detected in other Neolithic sites of the Iberian Peninsula, but this is the first time that the species were taxonomically identified and a strategy in the selection of the animals was directly evidenced.

In addition to the classical approach of archaeozoology, use-wear analysis was added to identify the specific uses of the tools and the materials with which they were produced by high-resolution microscopy, and taxonomic identification, carried out by mass spectrometry (ZooMS) through the evaluation of peptide biomarkers.

Conclusion and Future Research Directions

“Future research could benefit from the integration of these three approaches for a better understanding of the relationship between artefact types and the species selected for their production. This study is only the tip of the iceberg,” concludes Ignacio Clemente, a researcher at GAAM and at the Milà i Fontanals Institution for Research in the Humanities (IMF-CSIC) who also coordinated the study.

Reference: “Combining traceological analysis and ZooMS on Early Neolithic bone artefacts from the cave of Coro Trasito, NE Iberian Peninsula: Cervidae used equally to Caprinae” by Jakob Hansen, Alejandro Sierra, Sergi Mata, Ermengol Gassiot Ballbè, Javier Rey Lanaspa, Frido Welker, Maria Saña Seguí and Ignacio Clemente Conte, 10 July 2024, PLOS ONE.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0306448

The study was coordinated by the research group EarlyFoods from the Department of Prehistory of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and ICTA-UAB, under the framework of the European project ChemArch. Also involved in the study were researchers from the High Mountain Archaeology Research Group (GAAM, UAB and IMF-CSIC), the General Council of Aragón, and the University of Copenhagen.