What is this thing - \"bone spindle\"

[Lepidina]

Thanks! I think I'm going with hairpin.

I think the term "spindle" threw me in the British museum entries. That's the description of the piece, not the function. All the accession dates are like 1901 or earlier and generic descriptions like that are typical of their earlier collections. Things were thrown into a box and never relabeled. I also do knitting history and there are loads of artifacts labeled "knitted" that are not because it was a way to distinguish it from woven fabric. Drives me nuts.

Here's a link to couple more bone hairpins (from a museum site, completely legit).

Thanks everyone for the input!!