An ethnoarchaeological comparison of observed butchery actions to bone surface modifications of the Dobe !Kung San

ABSTRACT

The Dobe !Kung were a group of foragers living in northern Botswana in the Kalahari Desert. In the second half of the twentieth century, their butchery actions on animal prey were recorded (1968–1975) and their abandoned camps from 1944–1976 were excavated to retrieve faunal remains from butchered prey animals. Here we test the hypothesis that bone surface modifications on these excavated faunal remains accurately reflect these butchery observations. We find that despite a few exceptions, the observed bone surface modifications follow the expectations derived from observations of butchery of different sized animals. This supports the idea that past butchery actions, based on the location and presence of bone surface modifications on modern bones, can be confidently linked to past butchery behaviours. We also suggest that bone surface modifications can provide information about past hunter-gatherer processing behaviours, cooking styles, and use of hides.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnoarchaeology
• actualism
• butchery
• bone surface modification
• taphonomy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2023.2278151