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Grooved Bone Awls from Shields Pueblo

by Jamie Merewether, Collections Manager
 April 13, 2007

   
  Grooved bone awls from Shields Pueblo.
  Grooved bone awls from Shields Pueblo.

As the lab staff continues working with the Shields Pueblo artifact assemblage, including writing the artifacts chapter for the final report, interesting details have emerged with regard to the worked-bone assemblage from the site.

Approximately 39,000 animal bones were recovered from Shields Pueblo during the four years that Crow Canyon conducted excavations at the site. Of these, approximately 540 were identified as tools or ornaments, including scrapers, beads, gaming pieces, tubes, and items classified simply as “other modified bone.” But one of the most common bone tools from Shields Pueblo is the awl—typically a long bone that was deliberately fashioned into a point on one or both ends. With 207 whole and fragmentary specimens in the assemblage, awls make up almost 40 percent of the total bone tool collection from this site.

  Unusual awl with deep groove at the very tip.
  Unusual awl with deep groove at the very tip.

A small number of the bone awls (as well as several “other modified bone” specimens) have one or more distinctive grooves on the shaft. Such grooves are found close to the tip and are usually diagonal or perpendicular to the long axis of the tool. They are relatively deep and wide, appear to be worn (not incised) into the bone, and sometimes extend one-half to three-quarters around the shaft circumference. Twenty-two awls and “other modified bone” tools in the Shields Pueblo collection have this type of groove. Grooved awls have also been found at many other Pueblo sites in the Mesa Verde region.

What might these grooves tell us about tool function? Awls in general show an amazing array of fine striations and polish that could be consistent with a variety of uses, and it’s likely that many were multipurpose implements. Worn grooves, however, are such a distinctive form of modification that it is thought they might signify a specific identifiable use—in fact, they are often referred to as “weaving grooves.”

In a study conducted in the 1990s for her master’s thesis, former Crow Canyon intern Margaret Bullock used replicas of bone awls to make baskets, work leather, and weave textiles—the three most commonly touted uses for awls. Each activity resulted in distinctive wear patterns, and the weaving experiment in particular produced modifications similar to grooves—but it failed to perfectly duplicate the modifications seen in ancient specimens. (The weaving test involved sliding the awl tip behind the warp thread on a loom and then pulling the warp thread forward so a weft thread could be woven behind it.)

So how were these curious tools used by the residents of Shields Pueblo? Although a weaving function is suggested, more studies of grooved bone awls are warranted. Such studies might include ethnographic research in addition to expanded replication experiments and examination of additional specimens recovered from other Pueblo sites in the Mesa Verde region.