Institute For Ice Age Studies

The fabrication sequence (a mere fragment of the much broader and inclusive châine opératoire outlined above) for Aurignacian ivory and stone beads varies both intra- and inter-regionally. In France, the most common form, represented by more than 1000 specimens, is what has been called basket-shaped beads. Found in large quantities early in this century at Abri Blanchard, Abri Castanet, Abri de la Souquette, Isturitz and Saint Jean de Verges, these have now been radiocarbon dated by Delporte at Brassempouy (Delporte and Buisson 1990) to between 33- and 32,000 years ago. They were created (Figure 4) from pencil-like rods of ivory or talc that were then circuminscribed and snapped into cylindrical blanks one to two centimeters long. These were then bilaterally thinned at one end to form a sort of stem. A perforation was then created at the junction of the stem and the unaltered end. This was done by gouging from each side, rather than by rotational drilling. These rough-outs were then ground and polished into their final basket-shaped form using, first coarse abrasives and then fine metallic abrasives (powdered hematite) as abrasive. My experiments indicate that a mean of one to two hours of labor per ivory bead and 30 minutes per talc bead are required by this process.

Ivory beads in south German Aurignacian sites, also radiocarbon dated to between 32- and 33,000 years ago, are substantially different, although the basic principle of reducing an ivory baton was the same (Figure 5). In the case of Geißenklösterle for example (Hahn 1986), a baton elliptical in section was circumincised and snapped. The blank was then thinned and perforated by gouging. In this case however, two holes separated by a bulge were dug into the blank. This type of bead is as unknown in France as the basket-shaped form is in Germany.