NAVAJO The Excavation and Repair of Betatakin

OBJECTS OF BONE

Awls (pl. 38, 1-8).—Of the 11 awls in our collection, only one (1) is of bird bone, and that the tibiotarsus of a turkey. The longest (2), with its specialized point, and the two rounded specimens (7-8), are worthy of note; the others are mere splinters and cut sections of mammal bones, shaped by abrasion on sandstone. Figure 19 illustrates a needle whose drilled eye is so small as to take but a single yucca fiber.

FIGURE 19.—BONE NEEDLE

Fleshers.—The three typical examples in Plate 38, 9-11, are all of deer bone, the larger two from the femur.

Miscellaneous bones.—From almost every Pueblo ruin come diverse bones and fragments, many of which show at least some slight evidence of modification by human agencies. Only two such pieces were retained from the Betatakin excavations: (1) The humerus of a turkey from which both condyles were removed (312377), and (2) the cannon bone of a deer (312381), partially split by sawing on each side with flint tools. In addition, there is an unworked fragment of mountain-sheep horn (312382). A drilled block and two spindle whorls of horn were noted in a preceding paragraph.