Collections Online

This scraper or smoothing tool has been made from a cattle sternum that has been split in half.

It is worn and shiny on the lower split edge, including inside the cavity, which indicates it wasn't used as a handle for something like a knife. It is also worn on the broken upper edge where it was held. It fits perfectly in the hand, particularly the right hand; it is unlikely to have been used by a left handed person.

The object could have been used for skin processing which would account for the excessive buffing. The sternum is much heavier than those of modern cattle (A Pluskowski, pers comm). Bronze Age cattle were in fact far lighter than modern cattle, indicating that this heavy sternum may have come from an auroch. Middle Bronze age aurochs are dated in the area at Porlock Weir and Charterhouse, Warren Farm (McDonnell 1998; Everton 1975).

This object comes from the same context as the wooden palstave handle (small finds number 630)