Using Radiocarbon Dates and Tool Design Principles to Assess the Role of Composite Slotted Bone Tool Technology at the Intersection of Adaptation and Culture-History

Abstract

Slotted bone tools are an iconic example of composite tool technology in which change in one of the components does not require changing the design of the other parts. Commonly, slotted bone tools are seen through the lens of lithic technology, highlighting organizational aspects related to serial production of insets, reliability and maintainability. In this framework, slotted bone tool technology is associated with risk aversion in demanding environmental settings. Here, we provide the first overview of radiocarbon-dated slotted bone tools in northernmost Europe and the East European Plain, including 17 new direct dates on pitch glue, and show that the Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene period of inset slotted bone tool use in this area shows marked variation and idiosyncrasy in associated lithic technology against a trend of continuously warming climate. We suggest that historical specificity and path-dependence, rather than convergent evolution, best explain the variability seen in slotted bone tool technology in the studied case, and that slotted bone tools in general formed an organizationally flexible, adaptable and hence likely adaptive technological solution that met a wide variety of cultural and technological demands.