Hello, all,

I have been writing about bone artifacts in another context, and have extracted
the tiny bit I wrote about bone button making in case the list of references
would be of use or interest to anyone (though to my regret, I've never seen the
article that Paul Courtney is seeking).  I'm writing about the artifacts of
needlework and sewing, and buttons are not included in this category (they are
more accurately grouped with artifacts of personal adornment), though
manufacturing evidence is a wholly different matter.  Most of the bone "buttons"
found on historical sites are in fact button blanks or button backs that would
have been covered with some sort of fabric, though not necessarily in all cases.
 I think that the fact that sometimes the button making evidence seems to be at
the level of small-scale home industry indicates there was likely some sort of
commercial outlet for this work.  But as I said, I have dealt with this topic
only tangentially.  One object lesson in studying bone working is that no one
should ever assume that a slaughterhouse site would necessarily contain a great
deal of bone waste or wonder where the bones got to if they are not present.

Mary C. Beaudry
A few notes on bone buttons
Extract from a manuscript in preparation, on a different topic!

        Evidence for manufacture of bone buttons or button blanks, consisting of the
artifacts as well as manufacturing waste (most commonly flat portions of cattle
bone, though other mammal, and even reptile bone was used at times), is often
found in contexts associated with plantation workshops or with the living
quarters of enslaved Africans (e.g., at Brimstone Hill in St. Kitts, WI, at
Monticello in Virginia) as well as at the encampments and villages of free or
self-emanicipated Africans (e.g. Fort Mose in Florida) (Klippel and Schroedl
1999; Kelso 1997; MacMahon and Deagan 1996: 19). This has given rise to the
interpretation that African craft workers fashioned these items, which they
undoubtedly did in some contexts, but similar deposits of manufacturing debris
have been found in Europe at both medieval and post-medieval sites as well as
from a number of late 18th-century British and American military sites in North
America (Klippel and Schroedl 1999: 228?229).  Such waste is also found at
almshouses and other institutional sites.  Quantities of button backs and blanks
as well as debris at the site of New York City?s first almshouse (ca. 1730)
suggest that "button making may have been on of the tasks required of Almshouse
residents" (Cantwell and Wall 2001: 276, Figure 15.9).
        Bone button-making made use of flat portions of animal bone that would otherwise
have been discarded as butchery waste, as did scale-making, that is, the
production of scales or side-plates for knife and fork handles. In Britain more
attention has been given to the working of cattle horn cores (for a summary, see
Robertson 1989;) than to manufacture of objects from long bone (but see Armitage
1982, MacGregor 1985).  Horn was another material used for making scales,
although the horn had to be rendered flat after it was softened; large deposits
of horn cores are often cited as evidence of the initial steps in this process
(See, e.g., Armitage 1982: 98, 102?104; Robertson 1989; West 1995: 31).

References
Armitage, Philip L.  1982.  Studies on the Remains of Domestic Livestock from
Roman, Medieval, and Early Modern London:  Objectives and Methods.  In
Environmental Archaeology in the Urban Context, ed. A. R. Hall and H. K.
Kenward, pp. 94?106. Research Reports 43.   Council for British Archaeology, London.
Cantwell, Anne-Marie, and Diana diZerega Wall.  2001.  Unearthing Gotham:  The
Archaeology of New York City.  Yale University Press, New Haven.
Kelso, William M.  1997.  Archaeology at Monticello:  Artifacts of Everyday Life
in the Plantation Community.  Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation,
Charlottesville, Va.
Klippel, Walter E., and Gerald F. Schroedl.  1999.  African Slave Craftsmen and
Single-hole Bone Discs from Brimstone Hill, St Kitts, West Indies.
Post-Medieval Archaeology 33:  222?232.
MacGregor, Arthur.  1985.  Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn:  The Technology of
Skeletal Materials Since the Roman Period.  Croom Helm, London.
MacMahon, Darcie, and Kathleen A. Deagan.  1996.  Legacy of Fort Mose:  A
Florida Marsh Yields the Remnants of Colonial America?s First Free Black
Settlement.  Archaeology 49:54?58.
Robertson, J. C.  1989.  Counting London?s Horn Cores:  Sampling What?
Post-Medieval Archaeology 23:1?10.
West, Barbara.  1995.  The Case of the Missing Victuals.  Historical Archaeology
29(2):20?42.