Teagan,

We've found evidence of bone button production - both single hole bone discs and the long bones with blanks cut out - on the upper terraces of a 19th century urban house compound in St. Thomas, USVI occupied by a Danish family and then rented out by a Scottish merchant.  I'm currently writing up the findings as part of my dissertation and would be more than happy to share the data when finished.

In case you haven't come across it, Klippel and Schroedl wrote an excellent article on bone button production by African slave craftsmen at Brimstone Hill in St. Kitts ( Post-Medieval Archaeology 1999 33:222-232), where they recovered similar single-hole bone discs made from pig, cattle, sheep, goat and turtle bones as well as the production tools.

Email me if you would like to talk about this more.

Christian Williamson
Doctoral Candidate
Syracuse University

________________________________________
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Teagan Schweitzer [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2011 9:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: bone button production sites

Hi all,

I am a zooarchaeologist working with an assemblage from the early 19th
century in Philadelphia in which there is evidence of bone button production
- i.e. cow longbones with button blanks cut out of them. I am on the hunt
for other assemblages of a similar time period with evidence for button
production or other research you are aware of that addresses techniques for
button production around this time. Any help you can offer would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks!

~ Teagan

--
Dr. Teagan Schweitzer
Department of Anthropology
University of Pennsylvania