In 2006 at Anyang, China (last capital of the Shang dynasty), a salvage excavation along a 270 meter stretch of road repair turned up what may be the largest deposit of bone working debris in the world. After six months of excavation over 80 truckloads of recovered material (mostly bone) were brought back to the Anyang work station (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Archaeology). This material was in addition to a large quantity of bone that had been excavated from the same general area in 2002. The 2006 assemblage alone is conservatively estimated to contain over 2 million fragments. Awarded a Luce Fellowship in 2008 ( Consumption and Production ), Joukowsky Institute post-doctoral researcher Rod Campbell is currently conducting a preliminary study of the bone artifact production debris in collaboration with Yuan Jing, Li Zhipeng and He Yulin of the Institute of Archaeology (CASS). See the above link for the Luce proposal, see the blog below for the ongoing progress of the project (and assorted associated mis-adventures).
