Through the study of butchery and fishing practices, it is possible to reconstruct behaviors that occurred in the past. These cut marks on a sua fish (Protonibea diacanthus) mid-body vertebra are approximately 4,500 years old and originate from the Harappan period occupation at the site of Balakot along Sonmiani Bay along the eastern Makran coast. The distribution of cut marks on the skeletal elements of fish varies dependent on the size of the fish, the species, as well as the type of processing. For commercial butchery, a decision is made to butchery the fish in the round, as called by my French colleague, Dr. Jean Desse, or whether the fish will be processed in as a dried fish. The distinctive butchery technique for dried fish includes the strategy of butterfly splitting such that many of the cutmarks occur along the medial or inside margin of the bones, whereas for butchery in the round the cut marks originate from the outside or lateral margins of the fish.
