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Observations on the Butchering Technique of Some Aboriginal Peoples No. 2*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Theodore E. White*
Affiliation:
River Basin Surveys, Lincoln, Nebraska

Extract

In a brief report, which was read before the 8th Conference for Plains Archeology by George Metcalf, 1 attempted to reconstruct the procedure by which the carcass of an antelope was prepared for food. The inferences thus drawn were based upon the ratio of the various elements to each other and to the greatest number of individuals represented, as well as the location of the breaks or cuts in the bones. Since the antelope is one of the smaller food animals and could be moved to a convenient butchering place, the question immediately posed itself: “How would size affect the butchering technique since a bison must necessatily be butchered where it is killed?“

The bison bone which provides the basis for this study was collected during the excavation of two archaeological sites near Pierre, South Dakota. The Dodd site was a multi-component village, but there was evidence of only a single cultural complex at the Phillips Ranch site (Lehmer, 1952).

Type
Facts and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1953

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Footnotes

*

Published by permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

References

Cahalane, Victor H. 1947. Mammals of North America. The Macmillan Company.Google Scholar
Leechman, Douglas 1951. Bone Grease. American Antiquity, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 355-6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmer, Donald J. 1952. The Fort Pierre Branch, Central South Dakota. American Antiquity, Vol. 17, No. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Gilbert L. 1924. The Horse and Dog in Hidatsa Culture. Anthropological Papers, American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 15, Pt. 2.Google Scholar
White, Theodore E. 1952. Observations on the Butchering Technique of some Aboriginal Peoples: I. American Antiquity, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 337-8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar