Skates Made of Bone: A History

by B.A. Thurber

Overview

Ice skates made from animal bones were used in Europe for millennia before metal-bladed skates were invented. Archaeological sites have yielded thousands of examples, some of them dating to the Bronze Age. They are often mentioned in popular books on the Vikings and sometimes appear in children's literature.

Even after metal skates became the norm, people in rural areas continued to use bone skates into the early 1970s. Today, bone skates help scientists and re-enactors understand migrations and interactions among ancient peoples.

This book explains how to make and use them and chronicles their history, from their likely invention in the Eurasian steppes to their disappearance in the modern era.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476673905
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	03/05/2020
Pages:	194
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.39(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

B.A. Thurber is an independent scholar based in Evanston, Illinois. Her previous publications include new editions of historic skating books and journal articles on subjects as diverse as historical linguistics, Scandinavian literature, and fluid dynamics.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Preface 1

1 Skating Before Skates 5

2 How to Skate on Bones 10

2.1 Sources and Approaches 10

2.2 Selecting Bones for Skating 11

2.3 Making Skates 14

2.4 Attaching the Bones 20

2.5 The Pole 24

2.6 Skating! 25

2.7 How Fast Did They Go? 31

2.8 Wear and Discard 33

3 The Study of Bone Skates 36

3.1 Skaters and Scholars 36

3.2 Identifying Bone Skates in Written Records 39

3.3 Identifying Bone Skates in the Archaeological Record 43

4 How Ice Skating Came to Be 51

4.1 An Origin Story 51

4.2 The Steppes As a Homeland 54

4.3 Skates, Skis and Horses 56

4.4 Skating Across Europe 62

5 Tools or Toys? 66

5.1 The Question of Use 66

5.2 Bone Type 70

5.3 Complexity 74

5.4 A Note on the Earliest Skate Candidates 83

6 Skating and Skiing in Medieval Scandinavian Literature 85

6.1 Skates and Skis 85

6.2 Skaters and Skiers 87

6.3 Skating and Skiing 90

6.4 Skríða As a Generic Verb of Motion 93

6.5 The Similarity of Bone Skates and Skis 98

7 Skating on Bones in the Middle Ages 100

7.1 The Scandinavian Expansion 100

7.2 Bone Skates as Scandinavian Artifacts in Great Britain 107

7.3 Bone Skates on the Continent 114

7.4 Directions for Future Research 117

8 The End of the Bone Age 119

8.1 The Emergence of Metal-Bladed Skates 119

8.2 The Spread of the New Style 127

8.3 Where to Go from Here 132

Appendix: Modern Descriptions 135

A.1 Germany and Poland 135

A.2 Central Europe 138

A.3 Great Britain 141

A.4 The Northeast 142

A.5 Scandinavia 142

Chapter Notes 147

Bibliography 169

Index 183

Editorial Reviews

A must for anyone interested in the understudied phenomenon of bone ice skates from protohistoric and historic periods.”—ICAZ (International Council of Zooarchaeology) Newsletter; “Ambitious…fresh…The book is really a must for anyone interested in the understudied phenomenon of bone ice skates from protohistoric and historic periods…excellent”—International Council of Zooarchaeology Newsletter; “Thurber expertly explains how to make and use bone skates...fascinating, impressively informative...recommended”—Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher