Fish bones, cut marks, and burial: implications for taphonomy and faunal analysis

Willis et al. (2008) demonstrated that butchering fish can result in upwards of 500 cut marks per fish skeleton. However, despite various ethnographic studies that describe fish butchering techniques for consumption and drying, cut marks are rarely observed or described for fish bone from archaeological sites. To test the discrepancy between the experimental results and archaeological observations, we buried 13 butchered fish skeletons for 27 months to observe whether the cut marks are still visible after exposure to post-depositional taphonomic processes. After burial, we observed a general decrease - up to 76%, depending on the species of fish - in the number of cut marks visible on fish bone, accompanied by a shift from cut marks on identifiable elements to cut marks on unidentifiable bones and bone fragments. These results impact the methods for analyzing archaeological fish bone, and contribute to our understanding and interpretation of taphonomy, aquatic faunal assemblages, and prehistoric butchering practices.