Shaping wood in the Canary Islands: First experimental dataset focused on tool marks of Prehispanic wooden artifacts

Abstract

The first settlers of the Canary Islands arrived at this archipelago from northern Africa between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE. These communities probably knew metallurgy in their area of origin, although an adaptation process must have taken place for the successful development of woodworking strategies based on stone/bone technologies in a volcanic archipelago. In this paper, the first experimental program focusing on Prehispanic indigenous woodworking activities is presented. Conducted in 2022 in Tenerife, 41 experiments explored technological traces of specific woodworking actions and techniques, using replicas of tools made from obsidian, coarse-grained volcanic and pumice rocks, as well as transformed ovicaprid bones serving as bone chisels, wooden wedges and hammers. The experimentation addressed some of the woodworking chaîne opératoire stages, generating a reference collection of tool marks produced under controlled variables. The obtained experimental dataset enabled statistical comparisons with diverse archaeological artifacts in terms of typology and origin. Our results provide preliminary observations regarding actions, types of tools and techniques. In addition, this data suggests that the technological adaptation of aboriginal societies to woodworking with non-metal tools produced similar results on different islands.