http://www.ccwhc.ca/wildlife_health_topics/winter_tick/BoneMarrowFatMeasurement.php

"The fat content of bone marrow can be estimated easily and cheaply.

   1. Secure a sample of marrow from the mid-shaft region of a leg bone (the
   femur or thigh bone is used most commonly). The segment should be about 5 cm
   long or weigh 30-50 g. *(To secure the sample, crack the bone in the
   middle with some hard instrument, and then twist the ends apart to fracture
   the bone along the cracks*)."

Not too hard.
For evidence that this actually happened, here's a quick example.
http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic55-2-143.pdf
Note especially page 145 for an explanation and a picture.

This would have been a good practice for a scavenging tool user, as the
marrow containing bones are normally unbroken, as it is very difficult to
intentionally break them without tools.  Thus, even an abandoned carcass,
stripped of the rest of its nutritional value (meat, organs, etc), still is
likely to have the marrow left.

The NOVA program "In Search of Human Origins" has a rather long segment on
this too.  The video itself is ideal, but here's the transcript.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2107hum2.html
[looking over a found carcass that has been well picked over, with virtually
no meat left]
"DON JOHANSON: Using a stone tool like the ones Homo habilis made, the bone
is quickly cracked open. Boy, there really is quite a bit of marrow in those
long bones.

ROB BLUMENSCHINE: Yes, and it's color shows that it's still very fat rich.
In fact, in an animal of this size, the leg bones alone would have provided
about fifteen hundred calories from the marrow. That's about enough for a
meal for two individuals."

And then they go and look at micro-wear analysis on both fossils and
processed fresh bones, and compare.

[talking about what is found in the fossil record] "But what really
interests me is when I go back and look at the bone collections from the
site where Lucy was found, the bones are virtually complete and unbroken.
But as soon as stone tools enter the fossil record, the character of those
bone assemblages changes dramatically. The bones are bashed up, broken,
marrow is extracted, cut marks appear on the bones."

Cheers!

On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Robert Kesterson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:26:47 -0500, william <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>
>> Robert Kesterson wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Nah.  Paleo man would have cracked the bones open and sucked the marrow
>>> out.  :)
>>>
>>>  So how? I don't know how to crack bones open. Butchers use a saw, not
>> paleo. I can imagine it with my six pound hammer and a cold chisel, but
>> seems too difficult.
>>
>> Anyone ever done it with stone tools?
>>
>
> I've not done it personally, but I have no doubt I could if I wanted to.
>  Animals use stones to crack nuts open (chimps do it, and I've seen
> squirrels do it), so man using stones to crack bones isn't much of a
> stretch.  A google search on "paleolithic", "crack", "bones", and "marrow"
> returns several articles which mention the practice.
>
> --
>  Robert Kesterson
>  [log in to unmask]
>



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