Toward Recognizing the Prehistoric Butchery of Frozen Meat: An Archaeological Experiment and Stone Tool Microwear Analysis

Prehistoric humans occupied cold environments for more than one million years without the controlled use of fire. Processing frozen meat may have been a regular occurrence. In order to explore whether this behavior is present in the archaeological record, archaeologists must first understand whether the butchery of frozen meat leaves diagnostic traces of microwear on stone tools. We present an experiment that investigates what sorts of...