Items of fun, utility and divination: The knucklebones from Oluz Höyük, north-central Anatolia (Turkey)

Abstract

Knucklebones (i.e., culturally used astragali) are commonly encountered at many archaeological sites in Anatolia, ranging from the Neolithic to medieval period. Yet, very little is known about the cultural usages of these artifacts through time — as only scant attention has been paid to them. Here, we report a total of 590 even-toed ungulate knucklebones, unearthed from the 2008 to 2017 excavations at Oluz Höyük in north-central Anatolia (Turkey). The specimens were recorded from six cultural occupations, ranging from the Late Bronze Age (Hittite) to the medieval period. The highest number of knucklebones (72%) came from the Iron Age occupations — first associated with a Phrygian mother goddess (Matar Kubileya) temple, and later an early Zoroastrian fire temple complex (Cella) of Achaemenid occupation. Intense cultural marks such as perforating, piercing, polishing, smoothing, coloring, and metal casting were observed – indicating the specimens to be important cultural items with a variety of applications. About 85% of the specimens belonged to sheep and goats, whereas the rest came from cattle (9%), pigs (5%), deer (0.17%) and mouflon (0.85%) — suggesting that the inhabitants of all occupations at Oluz Höyük collected the knucklebones from the animals they commonly consumed. Being by far the first systematic observation of knucklebones from any archaeological site, the results of this study will add vital information to the very limited archaeological knowledge of knucklebones in Anatolia.