Analyse spatiale de la distribution des marques de percussion sur os longs Résultats préliminaires d’une expérimentation fondée sur l’observation du registre osseux du site d’Isernia La Pineta (Italie, MIS 15).

Abstract: Isernia La Pineta, located on the Italian peninsula, is one of the oldest open-air sites in Western Europe (MIS 15). Since its discovery in the 1970s, it has led to a better understanding of the subsistence and technical behaviours of hominins in the first part of the Middle Pleistocene (Middle Galerian). The taphonomic analysis of the faunal assemblages of four archeosurfaces has demonstrated the presence of a systematic anthropic fracturing of the long bones, especially for bison, the most abundant taxon. A focus on percussion marks on these long bones demonstrated a systematisation of their location on the diaphysis. Following these results, P. Anconetani and colleagues (1996) set up an archaeological experiment to fracture long bones of bovids (Bos taurus). They decided to break the exact location of the percussion marks identified on the archaeological faunal remains. Three breakage techniques were tested during this experiment: 1) percussion with a hammerstone on an anvil, 2) batting bone on an anvil or 3) mixed of both. Based on the precise drawings of each bone remains and the systematic recording of the percussion marks, we transcribed these data digitally with the help of spatial analysis software (Geographic Information System). For comparison purposes, only the long bones of the stylopod and zeugopod were selected (15 humeri, 15 radii-ulnae, 16 femora and 12 tibiae). The first results of the spatial analysis of percussion mark distribution show the presence of concentration zones for each bone element, independently of the fracturing technique used. Moreover, these areas of mark concentration were compared to a previous experiment, conducted by D. Vettese and colleagues (2020), which highlighted fracturing zones related to an intuitive practice that depends on the morphology of the skeletal elements. Thus, the application of the spatial analysis method on bone to the material from the experiments carried out in Isernia has made it possible to highlight that the areas selected for hitting the bone in order to extract the marrow can be identified using the spatial analysis of the distribution of percussion marks. This preferential hitting area is shown to be independent of the percussion technique used. Furthermore, it does not appear that the use of anvils and the presence of possible counter-blows interfere with the identification of the preferentially percussed zone. It is possible that this zone, preferentially selected to fracture the bone, is similar to the zone intuitively chosen by novice experimenters. Future comparison with the analysis of the archaeological material will make it possible to raise the question of the processes, intuitive or not, for the implementation of systematic anthropogenic fracturing of long bones to extract the marrow, and this, from the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene.