Experimental butchery with modern stone tools and its relevance for Palaeolithic archaeology

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Abstract
The author gives an interim account of his own experiments in butchering carcasses, including goat and zebra, using stone tools which he had made himself (replicating certain tool types common in Bed IV of Olduvai Gorge). The butchery process was based on the traditional Wakamba method of butchering goats, which is also described step by step. The author found that for most tasks bifacial tools of substantial size, including handaxes, were more efficient than small unretouched or retouched flakes. There are few accounts of experimental butchery in the archaeological literature and detailed ethnographic reports are also very scarce. The conclusions drawn from the experiments are briefly discussed, with reference to the light they may throw on the lithic assemblages recovered from earlier Palaeolithic butchery sites, in which large cutting tools are inclined to be rare.