Data of: Using horse teeth to shape stone tools: an experimentalapproach to characterise use wear traces

Abstract

Tooth retouchers have been typically grouped within the category of “bone retouchers” at a technical level and thus, considered as “soft” hammers. However, the different chemical composition of bones and teeth have never been previously considered. Teeth are denser and heavier than bone blanks and, consequently, their technological features are not homologous and nature of this material as retoucher should be assessed. In this dataset we include some results of an archaeological experiment in which 41 modern horse teeth were used to test their effectiveness as retouchers. The aim of this work is to better understand the purpose of using teeth as tools of both Neanderthal and early modern populations, as well as to shed light about how these human groups used them. The overall objective of these data is to provide material to other researchers in order to allow comparisons with material from archaeological record or from other archaeological experiments. (2023-04-04)