During the Middle Paleolithic period, bone marrow extraction was an essential source of fat nutrients for hunter-gatherers especially throughout cold and dry seasons. This is attested by the recurrent findings of percussion marks in osteological material from anthropized archaeological levels. Among them some showed indicators that the marrow extraction process was part of a butchery cultural practice, meaning that the inflicted fracturing gestures and techniques were recurrent, standardized and counter-intuitive i.e. culturally influenced. In order to assess the weight of the counter-intuitive factor in the percussion mark pattern distribution, we carried out an experiment that by contrast focuses on the intuitive approach of fracturing bones to extract marrow, involving individual without experience in this activity. We wanted to evaluate the influence of bone morphology and the individuals′ behaviour on the distribution of percussion marks. Twelve experimenters broke 120 limb bones, a series of 10 bones per individual. During the experiment, information concerning the fracture of the bones as well as individual behaviour was collected and was subsequently compared to data from the laboratory study of the remains. Then, we applied an innovative GIS (Geographic Information System) method to analyze the distribution of percussion marks to highlight recurrent patterns. Results show that in spite of all the variables there is a high similarity in the distribution of percussion marks which we consider as intuitive patterns. The factor influenced the distribution for the humerus, radius-ulna and tibia series is the bone morphology, while for the femur series individual behaviour seems to have more weight in the distribution. To go further in the subject we need to compare the intuitive models with the distributions of percussion marks registered in fossil assemblages. Thus, it would be possible to propose new hypotheses on butchering practices based on the results presented in this work.

中文翻译：

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一种折断骨头的方法？直觉的分量

在旧石器时代中期，尤其是在寒冷和干燥的季节，骨髓提取是狩猎采集者脂肪营养的重要来源。人类考古水平从骨科材料中不断发现的撞击声证明了这一点。其中有一些迹象表明，骨髓提取过程是屠宰文化实践的一部分，这意味着所施加的压裂手势和技术是反复出现的，标准化的和违反直觉的，即受到文化的影响。为了评估打击乐图案分布中违反直觉的因素的权重，我们进行了一项实验，与之相反，该实验侧重于将骨头弄碎以提取骨髓的直观方法，涉及没有这项活动经验的个人。我们想评估骨骼形态和个人行为对敲击痕迹分布的影响。12名实验者折断了120根骨头，每个人断了10块骨头。在实验过程中，收集了有关骨骼断裂以及个人行为的信息，随后将其与来自残骸实验室研究的数据进行了比较。然后，我们应用了创新的GIS（地理信息系统）方法来分析打击乐标记的分布，以突出显示重复出现的模式。结果表明，尽管存在所有变量，但我们认为打击乐标记的分布具有高度相似性，我们认为这是直观的模式。影响肱骨，radius骨尺骨和胫骨系列分布的因素是骨骼形态，而对于股骨系列，个人行为似乎在分布中具有更大的分量。为了进一步研究该主题，我们需要将直观模型与化石组合中记录的打击乐标记的分布进行比较。因此，有可能基于这项工作中提出的结果提出关于屠宰实践的新假设。