Bone manufacturing in the Neolithic: The problems of reconstructing the chaîne opératoire and identifying workshops

Abstract

One of the important problems in analysing bone industry is the question of reconstructing the chaîne opératoire and other questions related to the organization of production, workshops and working places, since manufacturing debris often stays unrecognized during excavations, i.e. it is either not collected, or it is stored among faunal remains, awaiting identification and a proper analysis. Also, contextual data are often incomplete, especially when artefacts come from older excavations, when faunal remains were not recognized as important and thus the attention given to them was limited. In this paper a small collection of manufacture debris will be presented, related to the production of decorative items, from the site of Čoka-Kremenjak (Banat, northern Serbia). Although the material originates from excavations carried out one hundred years ago, certain conclusions can be drawn. These objects, along with the material from contemporaneous sites from the south Pannonian plain (Vojvodina region) and central Balkans (Starcevo, Grivac, Anište), helped in reconstructing the chaîne opératoire for making ornamental pieces from bone in Starčevo- Körös-Criş cultural complex and represent indirect evidence for the existence of a workshop within the Čoka settlement. This study raises some important questions for future research, especially those regarding the level of know-how of Neolithic craftspersons and the organization of production.