Santander, February 19th-22nd 2008 - Aranzadi

94
HALA ALARASHI
reach 4-5 mm in diameter (Carriker and Yochelson
1968, cited by d’Errico et al. 1993). The morphology
of the hole for the first family is conic and for
the second is cylindrical. These natural characteristics
could be confused with human-made perforations.
At Tell Aswad, one item could have been
naturally perforated: the labral fragment n°57 studied
by C. Maréchal (1995: fig. 115h). Indeed, she
has suggested that the hole was initially made by
a marine predator and subsequently enlarged by
drilling from the inner side of the shell (Maréchal
1995: 136).
For four objects, the location and shape of the
holes attest a human modification. The cowrie
n°43, with 5 holes (Fig. 2j), is the most complex
case found in this collection. The specimen was
almost complete when it was discovered but it was
broken after talking it out from the earth. The two
pairs of holes are situated symmetrically in an
opposite way on the lateral sides of the dorsum.
Their perimeters are irregular and slightly chipped.
They were probably made by either direct or indirect
percussion. The fifth hole is located in the centre
of the columellar ventral side. In the absence of
striations, only the subcircular and regular circumference
suggests the use of drilling technique by a
rotating movement.
Another example is offered by the cowrie n°42
(Fig. 2e and 5) which shows a hole situated also on
the ventral side and quite similar to the fifth hole of
the precedent object. I would like to precise that
these previous cowries (n°42 and 43) were found
together with a very bad-preserved third cowrie
displaying at least one hole situated also on the larger
area of the columellar part (cowrie n°9, no picture
available).
The broken columellar fragment n°176 has a
large and circular hole (nearly 5mm) located on
the ventral side near the anterior extremity (Fig. 2i).
The regular circumference of the hole could indicate
the use of drilling technique.
3.3. Incisions
Two types of linear traces were observed on
the surface of ten complete or fragmentary
cowries found at Tell Aswad (Table 1). The first
type corresponds to V-shaped grooves in crosssection
made by a back-and-forth movement
using sharp stone tools. Two cowrie shells show
this pattern.
The first case is the item n°33, where the features
were partially erased by the surface wear,
especially on the columellar part and on the lateral
sides. On the ventral face, the incisions are arranged
in a radial manner around the aperture of the
shell, each one starting from a point between two
columellar or labral teeth (Fig. 2a and 6). On both
lateral sides, the incisions are parallel and more
numerous than the ventral ones (about 15-20 compared
to 10) although some of them clearly match
together. This pattern clearly suggests a decorative
purpose of the cowrie surface by engraving.
On the second element, the columellar fragment
n°143, several more or less parallel incisions
are distributed on the lateral and ventral faces.
Their organization is not regular and some of them
Figure 5. Detail of the ventral face of the cowrie n°42. Note the notch-like use wear
on the perimeter of the perforation on the columellar part (red arrow), and a series
of thin crack lines around the natural aperture (yellow arrows) (scale bar: ¼ cm).
Figure 6. Detail of the V-shaped incisions made on the ventral labial part on the
cowrie n°33 (magnification x20).
MUNIBE Suplemento - Gehigarria 31, 2010
S.C. Aranzadi. Z.E. Donostia/San Sebastián