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Spiral Fractures and Bone Pseudotools at Paleontological Sites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Thomas P. Myers ,
Michael R. Voorhies  and
R. George Corner
Thomas P. Myers
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska State Museum, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588
Michael R. Voorhies
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska State Museum, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588
R. George Corner
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska State Museum, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588
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Abstract

Spiral ("green bone") breakage has been suggested as an indicator of human activity by some workers. Our examination of broken ungulate long bones from six paleontological localities in western Nebraska, however, shows that such fractures commonly occurred in the Miocene and Pliocene, long before the advent of man in North America. Pseudotools also occur frequently in these sites. We postulate that spiral breakage, including the production of pseudotools, may be due to trampling by animals.

Our study demonstrates that neither spiral breakage nor gross morphology, alone or in combination, is diagnostic of human activity. Problematical examples must be accepted or rejected wholly upon the basis of patterned wear on the supposed tools.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , July 1980 , pp. 483 - 490
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1980 

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