North American Paleoindian Eyed Bone Needles: Morphometrics, Sewing, and Site Structure. Issue 1 (January 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lyman, R. Lee
• Is Part Of: American antiquity. Volume 80: Issue 1(2015)
• Page Start: 146
• Page End: 160
• Publication Date: 2015-01
• Subjects: North America -- Antiquities -- Periodicals; America -- Antiquities -- Periodicals; Archaeology -- North America -- Periodicals; Archaeology -- America -- Periodicals; Anthropology -- America -- Periodicals; North America -- History -- Periodicals; America -- History -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 970
• DOI: 10.7183/0002-7316.79.4.146
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-7316

Abstract

Abstract: Eyed bone needles have been recovered from Paleoindian sites over the last 70 years. Specimens 13, 100–10, 000 calendar years old average 1.81 ± .58 mm in diameter, similar to 2500–1000 year-old specimens in the Aleutians which average 1.67 mm in diameter. Use of industrial steel needles and experiments with replicated bone needles indicate the broken eyes and mid-length fractures of Paleoindian bone needles are the result of use. Some specimens said to be Paleoindian eyed bone needles are ≤ 3 mm in diameter and likely represent behaviors distinct from those with diameters ≤ 2.9 mm. Many smalldiameter needles have been recovered from sites that also produced ornaments. Small-diameter Paleoindian needles may have been used to attach decorative items to clothing; decorative items could have served as identity icons as human groups became sedentary and established home ranges a few centuries after colonization. Paleoindian residential sites that have produced multiple specimens of small-diameter needles reveal clustering of needle specimens in limited areas, and Varying degrees of association with hide-preparation and needle manufacture and maintenance tools such as gravers, scrapers, and awls. Paleoindians, like some ethnographically documented people and some industrial-age people, had sewing specific activity loci.