Manatee Rib Project

Purpose and Design

The purpose of this project is to evaluate the prehistoric uses of manatee bones in Florida.  Today, about 1500 manatees live in Florida's waters, but their abundance in pre-Columbian Florida is unknown.  While the earliest dated artifact made from a manatee rib was found at Windover (Doran 2005), as a general rule, they are rare in Florida's prehistoric contexts.  The question is why.

Manatee bone is unlike terrestrial mammal bone in that it contains little or no calcareous bone; it is generally solid.  Since Florida had no only white-tailed deer since the end of the Pleistocene, it had no large-antlered animal that was equivalent to moose or elk, found in most environments to the north.  The question being explored here is whether mantee bone was precussor equivalent to the antlers of larger crevids.

Equipment

Manatees are an endangered species and protected under the Endangered Species Act; permits are required to possess manatee ribs.  I procured two manatee ribs from the manatee necrosis lab in St. Petersburg FL, which we were permitted to use for archaeological research.  One rib was provided to Mike Frank, an accomplished flint-knapper, for use as a percussor.  Mike

Florida stone

Photographs

Manatee paper