Late Neolithic Bone Shuttles from Barcın Höyük

The subject of this paper is the tools which were discovered at a striking rate at Layer VI of Barcın Höyük, dated to the Late Neolithic Period (circa cal. 6000-6600 BC); which were made from the ribs of such animals as goats and sheep; and which are thin and flat and taper from their perforated wide tip towards their other tip. Use-induced traces such as wear, shine, cracking, and breaking were determined on the perforations and at the tips of these tools, which are identified with 43 pieces at Barcın Höyük and which are analogous typologically and technologically. Hence, it was supposed that these tools might have been used in weaving or a sort of knitting process by reeving a thread through their perforations and they were identified as shuttles. Likewise, the presence of no other tool likely to have been used with this function supports this idea. At Barcın Höyük, the shuttles were discovered from different contexts such as above the floor, in burials, at various pits, and on surfaces. Displaying significant integrity within themselves, these tools were determined as of the first phase of the settlement (VIe) and they reached their standard form and their rate of use increased in the next phase (Vd1). In the Near East, shuttles are known particularly from the Levantine settlements as of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A. In Anatolia, however, the definition of weaving shuttle was either not used at all or used for different types of tools. I propose that such tools discovered at Barcın Höyük were shuttles, particularly due to the use traces.