Skates Made of Bone

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.

Acknowledgmentsvii
Preface1
1. Skating Before Skates5
2. How to Skate on Bones10
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 Skates36
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 Be51
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 Literature85
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 Ages100
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 Age119
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 Descriptions135
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 Notes147
Bibliography169
Index183