of bamboo down to the village, where this material was still being used to make all manner of things. There
were piles of long, thick bamboo trunks lying around, ready for construction. We were invited into a house in which there were piles of bamboo baskets stacked up, and an old man was in the process of
weaving one out of long, bendy strips of bamboo epithelium, or ‘bark’. In the yard, small ducklings had nestled together under
a bamboo cage.
Jo and I set to work on our bamboo tools. Using very basic, unretouched stone flakes, we pared down slivers of bamboo and
quickly made sharp-edged ‘knives’. I was surprised at how quick and easy the process was, though sceptical about just how
sharp and strong my bamboo knife would prove to be. The family had a chicken carcass ready for supper, and, using my brand
new bamboo knife, I made short work of butchering it, separating drumsticks, wings and breasts from the carcass (I may be
a vegetarian but I’m also an anatomist). The use of bamboo knives has been documented right across the Pacific. Ethnographic
studies have also shown that bamboo may even be used in preference to stone tools: the stone-adze-makers of Irian Jaya in
New Guinea, for example, like to use a simple piece of split bamboo for butchering. 5 And although my green bamboo knife had done the job well, Jo said it would have been even sharper had it been dried bamboo.
It was clear that bamboo could be used to make excellent cutting tools as well as being suitable for houses, baskets – and
even, as I had already seen, rafts. It was a wonderfully versatile material. (You could eat it, too. Bamboo became one of my favourite dishes on my visit to China, not as the more familiar, delicate
white bamboo shoots, but as inch-long pieces of thick shoots, rather like asparagus but crunchier – and delicious.) However,
the fact that bamboo could be used to make efficient tools isn’t proof that it was used. Neither is the fact that bamboo is still being used in some
places to make tools.
So was there any archaeological evidence of bamboo tools?
‘Well, no, not of the bamboo itself,’ admitted Jo. ‘But there is evidence of bamboo being worked – as well as other materials like rattan and palm wood – because there’s a high silica content in these materials. Using a
stone tool on bamboo leaves a very distinctive polish on that tool.’
This polish could be seen with the naked eye; Jo had brought along with him some stone flakes that he had used to cut bamboo,
and I could see the polishing quite clearly, next to the cutting edge.
‘How long does it take for this type of polish to develop?’ I asked him.
‘It starts to form immediately,’ he replied. ‘You can see the polish appearing within the first few minutes of cutting bamboo
or rattan.’
Employing microscopic use-wear analysis, it was actually possible to find out exactly what had been cut: different materials leave different tell-tale marks on stone tools. 6 Under a light or electron microscope, minute abrasions and polishing on tool edges provide clues that allow the material that
was cut to be identified. This means that archaeologists should be able to tell if stone tools have been used to cut into
bamboo, or rattan, or other materials. It may also be possible to find evidence of bamboo tool use as well. A study of experimentally
produced cut marks on bone showed that it was possible to tell the difference between cuts made with bamboo knives or stone
flakes, using scanning electron microscopy, which produces a very detailed, 3D image. 3
Jo had found examples of polish from cutting rattan on archaeological stone tools from a rockshelter in Timor. But those tools
had been only a few thousand years old.
‘What I’d really like to do is look at the very early, Chinese stone tools,’ said Jo.
As more Asian Palaeolithic sites are discovered, it is clear that the toolkits are more variable than was
were piles of long, thick bamboo trunks lying around, ready for construction. We were invited into a house in which there were piles of bamboo baskets stacked up, and an old man was in the process of
weaving one out of long, bendy strips of bamboo epithelium, or ‘bark’. In the yard, small ducklings had nestled together under
a bamboo cage.
Jo and I set to work on our bamboo tools. Using very basic, unretouched stone flakes, we pared down slivers of bamboo and
quickly made sharp-edged ‘knives’. I was surprised at how quick and easy the process was, though sceptical about just how
sharp and strong my bamboo knife would prove to be. The family had a chicken carcass ready for supper, and, using my brand
new bamboo knife, I made short work of butchering it, separating drumsticks, wings and breasts from the carcass (I may be
a vegetarian but I’m also an anatomist). The use of bamboo knives has been documented right across the Pacific. Ethnographic
studies have also shown that bamboo may even be used in preference to stone tools: the stone-adze-makers of Irian Jaya in
New Guinea, for example, like to use a simple piece of split bamboo for butchering. 5 And although my green bamboo knife had done the job well, Jo said it would have been even sharper had it been dried bamboo.
It was clear that bamboo could be used to make excellent cutting tools as well as being suitable for houses, baskets – and
even, as I had already seen, rafts. It was a wonderfully versatile material. (You could eat it, too. Bamboo became one of my favourite dishes on my visit to China, not as the more familiar, delicate
white bamboo shoots, but as inch-long pieces of thick shoots, rather like asparagus but crunchier – and delicious.) However,
the fact that bamboo could be used to make efficient tools isn’t proof that it was used. Neither is the fact that bamboo is still being used in some
places to make tools.
So was there any archaeological evidence of bamboo tools?
‘Well, no, not of the bamboo itself,’ admitted Jo. ‘But there is evidence of bamboo being worked – as well as other materials like rattan and palm wood – because there’s a high silica content in these materials. Using a
stone tool on bamboo leaves a very distinctive polish on that tool.’
This polish could be seen with the naked eye; Jo had brought along with him some stone flakes that he had used to cut bamboo,
and I could see the polishing quite clearly, next to the cutting edge.
‘How long does it take for this type of polish to develop?’ I asked him.
‘It starts to form immediately,’ he replied. ‘You can see the polish appearing within the first few minutes of cutting bamboo
or rattan.’
Employing microscopic use-wear analysis, it was actually possible to find out exactly what had been cut: different materials leave different tell-tale marks on stone tools. 6 Under a light or electron microscope, minute abrasions and polishing on tool edges provide clues that allow the material that
was cut to be identified. This means that archaeologists should be able to tell if stone tools have been used to cut into
bamboo, or rattan, or other materials. It may also be possible to find evidence of bamboo tool use as well. A study of experimentally
produced cut marks on bone showed that it was possible to tell the difference between cuts made with bamboo knives or stone
flakes, using scanning electron microscopy, which produces a very detailed, 3D image. 3
Jo had found examples of polish from cutting rattan on archaeological stone tools from a rockshelter in Timor. But those tools
had been only a few thousand years old.
‘What I’d really like to do is look at the very early, Chinese stone tools,’ said Jo.
As more Asian Palaeolithic sites are discovered, it is clear that the toolkits are more variable than was
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