Heat Before Breaking: A GIS Spatial Analysis of Bone Survivorship and Burn Marks on Aurochs Bones From the Neolithic Houtaomuga Assemblage, Jilin, Northeast China

ABSTRACT Despite a growing recognition of the valuable information that detailed analyses of burned bone can provide in archaeological contexts, relatively few studies have investigated the relationship between the spatial distribution of burning marks and cooking behaviors. This study addresses this gap by applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to record thermal alterations on bone surfaces and to conduct a kernel density analysis of a 5500‐year‐old aurochs assemblage from Houtaomuga, northeast China. Results show that burning occurs significantly more often on bone shafts than on epiphyses. The clustered pattern of burn marks on bone shafts indicate that most heat alteration was unlikely to result from accidental fire contact but instead from pre‐treatment prior to bone breakage. We further compared bone survivorship patterns of aurochs limb bones from Houtaomuga with several experimentally modified bone assemblages. GIS‐generated models reveal that preservation patterns at Houtaomuga closely resemble those from experimental assemblages produced during marrow extraction by humans. These findings provide the first evidence of heat being used as a pretreatment for bone breaking in Neolithic China and highlight the potential of geospatial methods for interpreting thermal modifications in faunal remains.