jueves, 14 de abril de 2016

Headdress reconstruction throws light on hunter-gatherer rituals


Depiction of an Evenki shaman wearing antler headdress (after Witsen 1785, 655)

A research team led by archaeologists at the University of York used traditional techniques to create replicas of ritual headdresses made by hunter-gatherers 11,000 years ago in North Western Europe.

Flint blades, hammerstones and burning were among the tools and techniques they employed to fashion reproductions of shamanic headdresses discovered during excavations at the Early Mesolithic site at Star Carr in North Yorkshire.

The research published today in PLOS ONE is the first scientific analysis of the oldest known evidence of a shamanic costume in Europe. It challenges previously held assumptions over the care and time invested in the modification of the animal’s “skull cap” in order to create these ritualistic artefacts.

Instead the study, part of a five-year project supported by the European Research Council, Historic England and the Vale of Pickering Research Trust, suggests that hunter-gatherers achieved this through expedient manufacturing techniques. These may have involved packing the skull with damp clay and placing it in a bed of embers for up to four hours both to facilitate skin removal and make the bone easier to work. [...] The University of York


Link 2: Cómo se fabricaron los tocados rituales de astas de ciervo de hace 11.000 años hallados en Star Carr
Star Carr, en York (Reino Unido) es un importante yacimiento mesolítico datado en unos 11.000 años de antigüedad, y además es uno de los poquísimos yacimientos prehistóricos europeos donde se han localizado tocados rituales realizadso con cráneos de ciervo. Concretamente se han recuperado un total de 24 tocados a lo largo de sus excavaciones, que son casi el 90% de todos los que se conocen. Esto ha permitido el desarrollo de un intenso proyecto de arqueología experimental para reproducir su proceso de fabricación, más laborioso y específico de lo que nunca se había pensado. Esta investigación nos abre una ventana a las diferentes técnicas de manufactura utilizadas por los cazadores-recolectores hace 11.000 años...

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