Bone Awls and Basketry in Tierra del Fuego

Complementarity between Ethnography and Experimentation

Bibliographic Data

ID19003219
AuthorsAnna Franch Bach (0000-0001-6252-7690, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, corresponding author), Vanesa E Parmigiani (0000-0001-5425-7117, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), María Estela Mansur (0000-0003-1333-2744, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), H H De Angelis (0000-0002-5042-3891, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), María Celina Alvarez Soncini (0000-0003-0732-2371, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas)
Year2023
Volume15
Issue1
Pages1-23
Publication date2023-01-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnoarchaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1944-2890 • E-ISSN: 1944-2904
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/19442890.2023.2210357
OpenAlexW4377967858
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited21

The use of rushes and bone awls for indigenous basketry is mentioned in ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources from across the Americas, including Tierra del Fuego. Our research aimed to reproduce and record the technical process of basketry and how bone awls are involved in it, according to hypotheses derived from the ethnographic data. For this study, a techno-functional approach was adopted that combines the ethnographic record, community-based research, experimentation, and microscopic functional analysis. The chaine opératoire was reproduced for basket making, from the technical processes involved in collecting and processing rushes to completion of the basket. Results confirmed the effectiveness of techniques described in the documentary sources for the manufacture of baskets of Marsippospermum grandiflorum, including the use of bone awls. Functional analysis demonstrated the formation of characteristic use-wear traces produced by this activity

Archaeology · Biology · Ethnography · Geography · Indigenous · Sociology · Tierra · Anthropology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Computer Science · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Ecology

Tools

Open DOI