Worked bone assemblage, leather, and fur from Contrebandiers Cave, Morocco

[@thamizharam5302]

Many thanks for your support

[@j.b.4340]

What an excellent discussion on an extremely interesting subject. Thank you.

[@petehoover6616]

Loved it. One thing I noticed was that there seemed to be more of an element of "fashion" to the fox bone working than some need for shelter and comfort. Fox fur is nice but they seemed to have used it in the same way all the time. You're still talking about a fur coat in Morocco even 120,000 years ago. Soft but I bet it could be hot. As for a bovid rib bone used to work the skin side of leather, I still have one from a beef rib I made in 1982. There used to be a story about the "oldest tool in America" found along the Old Crow River which was a caribou humerus with saw teeth cut into the broad end like a toothed chisel. I tried to copy it with the beef rib bone. (Choose a STRAIGHT rib bone for this or you will get blisters on your palm!) I had fleshed quite a few whitetail deer hides with knives before. With the toothed bone a task that used to take me 2 hours now took only 15 minutes. That is why I have kept the bone for 40 years. And you are right, it doesn't pierce the hide but it leaves it cleaner than using a knife does. And wow is it ever a time saver.

[@petehoover6616]

I should add: when a 14-year-old boy needs to get his grandmother a gift a bone crochet hook made from either a deer leg bone that he or the dog found and brought home or a lamb shank he got from a Sunday dinner will make Grandma a beautiful gift. Bone crochet hooks are not oily slick and heavy like metal ones are. Leave the shaft kind of square, not round, so she can twist it easily in her fingers. Work with her on the sizing. If she uses one she will never want to go back to metal or plastic crochet hooks again. She will then want different sizes. Bone can not be sawn like wood. It has spiral grain and shatters like glass. To cut a shaft lay the saw along the bone's length, if you cut a "diameter" across bone it will spiral fracture and you could get cut. Firewood splinters and twigs also make better crochet hooks than metal or plastic but bone is by far the best thing to make a crochet hook out of, and 14-year-old boys generally know where they can get some. Those a dog has chewed on for 6 months and discarded seem to be defatted by the dog saliva. When used on sheep wool the lanolin prevents the bone from ever cracking. At least not for 40 years now.

[@Mr_badjoke]

Big fan of the crochet huh? Yawza!

[@petehoover6616]

@@Mr_badjoke The idea is that a between-ages teenager, not still a boy but not quite a man and not earning money yet, can make his grandmother a wonderful gift she can get no other way and it is so fine a gift she will not want to go back to buying crochet hooks because her grandson's are better. What I was afraid of is someone getting angry with me for serving the needs of a type of male that a lot of people can't stand. The whole idea is dripping with sugar except for the part about the dead deer, it gives the boy a chance to make his masculinity something beautiful. Anyone who considers all men to be their enemies will take umbrage at the whole idea.

[@Mr_badjoke]

@@petehoover6616 I remember crochet as super hard work. Grandmother's would spend a year on a blanket for each family member even