Archaeology reports on University of Helsinki researchers who held a dance marathon to find out the truth about prehistoric relics:
auditory archaeologist Riitta Rainio and artist Juha Valkeapää danced for six consecutive hours while wearing elk tooth ornaments sewn in rows on an apron, and then examined the microscopic wear marks left behind on the teeth as they clattered against each other. The researchers then compared these wear marks to elk teeth recovered from four graves at Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov, a Late Mesolithic cemetery in northwestern Russia…. The study suggests that the distinctive marks on the prehistoric teeth were made over years or even decades of dancing.