Estudio experimental del procesado de carcasas de aves. Interpretando el consumo de anátidas en contextos paleolíticos

Resumen

The importance of small prey exploitation in Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherer communities is being re-evaluated thanks to the proliferation of experimental and neotaphonomic studies. A special interest has been devoted to leporid remains, what is evident from the significant number of new referential studies that have been recently published. However, despite their abundance in the archaeological record, fewer studies have been focused to establish the human taphonomic signature on avian assemblages.

This paper presents the results obtained from an experimental study about the processing of carcasses of anatids,  specifically wood duck (Aix sponsa Linnaeus 1758). The activities conducted include the skinning, feathers extraction, disarticulation and defleshing of the avian carcasses. These activities were performed using lithic tools of different quality and by people with different skills. The results show that the location, intensity and orientation of some marks are useful to discriminate between the different butchery activities performed, contributing to the interpretation of the ornithoarchaeological record in prehistoric sites.