Bones, sex, and dolls: Solving a mystery in Central Africa and beyond

Abstract

Ethnographic parallels are used to explain the presence and significance of caprine or antelope metapodial bones principally in children's graves in Iron Age contexts in the Congo. Beyond Africa, in the Neolithic in France and Italy, but also during the Bronze Age in the Levant, the same mysterious bones have often been collected in similar contexts. It is likely that the natural shape of these bones led them to be seen as human figures and to be used as dolls. This is an example of how natural objects may be construed in a similar way in various societies and which raises many issues regarding what a doll actually is, its various functions and how it blurs boundaries between play and ritual.

Keywords:

• Metapodia
• doll
• childhood
• fertility
• Africa
• Europe
• Near East

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Adam Allentuck for bringing to my attention several articles on metapodia, the late Marie-Louise Bastin for the display on her mantelpiece, Julien Volper for showing me the Himba dolls, Isabelle Sidera, Cécile Kerner, Udo Horstmann and Allen Roberts for allowing me to reproduce some of their photographs and drawings, and Yvette Paquay and Nathalie Bloch for the drawings and maps.

ORCiD

Pierre de Maret https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7775-3444

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pierre de Maret

Pierre de Maret (Ph.D. 1978, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) is Professor of Archaeology and Social Anthropology at the Université libre de Bruxelles, and Honorary Professor at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. His research interests focus on the archaeology of Central Africa from early food production to the Late Iron Age.