Knapping and Ochre Staining

I finished out the week with a couple more pieces for the Dorset and Maritime Archaic order.  The knife blade on the right is a Dorset style and would have been the kind of blade hafted into the short antler handle that you can see lying on the table behind it.  Other than that, I finished a knapped stone Maritime Archaic stemmed projectile point based on one found at Port au Choix.  While I finish up the other pieces in the order, I've started layering on the red ochre for the Maritime Archaic pieces.  More layers gives the pieces extra depth and the illusion of age.

The point, barbed fish spear and barbed harpoon head are getting a dry ochre bath here.   A dry dusting of ochre can help age a knapped point, but its not usually enough to cover a polished bone or antler surface.

Here are the same pieces with an oil based coat added to lock in the pigment and bring out the colour in the ochre.  I'll do a few alternating layers of ochre and oil, removing the thicker buildup and particles of ochre between applications until I arrive at the final look that I'm going for.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

A few Palaeoeskimo and Maritime Archaic reproductions in progress

Dorset Palaeoeskimo artifact
reproductions in progress 

 I'm still working on a selection of Dorset Palaeoeskimo (left) and Maritime Archaic Indian artifact reproductions for a university teaching collection.  The Dorset pieces are primarily based on artifacts from Newfoundland and Labrador, although the self-bladed harpoon head is a Tyara sliced form that is an earlier style that would be a little more at home in Early Dorset collections from farther north in Nunavut.  Chronologically, the Tyara sliced harpoon heads overlap with the Groswater time period in Newfoundland and Labrador, before the Dorset moved down to these parts.

The assembled endblade, harpoon head and foreshaft will be hafted onto a complete harpoon, while the other endblade, side-blade, slate lance and a knife blade and microblades that I have yet to complete will be left unhafted.

Slate, antler and whalebone Maritime
Archaic Indian Reproductions

The Maritime Archaic pieces include a ground slate lance, barbed harpoon head and whalebone fish spear.  These reproductions are all based on artifacts from Port au Choix and date from 4400 - 3300 BP.  The antler harpoon head and fish spear have yet to be red ochre stained, but they are otherwise complete. There is also a knapped point to include in this set which I need to finish.

There is an extra lance head and pressure flaker in this photo, but otherwise everything shown here is intended for the same order.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Chip log

The three silver dots are lead weights.

I was looking through some old photos and came across these images of a reproduction that I made for the Matthew Legacy centre in Bonavista about 10 years ago.  Its a chip log, used to determine the speed of a sailing ship.  The triangular board was tossed from the stern of the ship and dragged behind the vessel.  As it dragged, the line would unspool from the reel.  At certain intervals there was a knot of fabric tied to the log line.  Each interval was marked with a different colour and texture of fabric so that the sailors could recognize them by both sight and feel.  Using an hourglass as a timer they would count the number of knots unwound from the reel in a set amount of time.  This is where the term "knot" came from to refer to the speed of a ship.

Oak, hemp line, assorted fabric knots, lead

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Did James P. Howley haft this adze 100 years ago?

The adze head is an artifact, the handle a reproduction

This Maritime Archaic Indian adze hafted in a red ochre stained handle is in the collection of Newfoundland and Labrador's Provincial Museum at The Rooms, here in St. John's.  I took this photo more than a decade ago while working on a contract with the Provincial Museum to put together their first webpage, while they were still in the old building on Duckworth Street.  I believe this is one of the earliest artifact reproductions made in this Province and its probably coming up on its 100th birthday.   The stone adze head is a Maritime Archaic artifact and most likely dates somewhere between 5500 and 3200 years old, but the handle is a reproduction that was crafted and added later.  But by whom?

Howley 1915. Plate XVII
 (click to enlarge)

James P. Howley was a geologist in this Province who was a key figure in the creation of the Newfoundland Museum.  He collected many of the first artifacts to be housed within its walls.  In 1915, he published a book called "The Beothucks or Red Indians", which is still one of the most comprehensive works to collect the primary historical references to the Island's Beothuk people.  Among the plates in that book Howley published a silhouette photo of this adze (Plate XVII,  No.9) and remarked in the plate caption;

These are specimens of the well-known Celts, which appear to have been common to savage people all the world over.  They are nearly always of the same pattern, and consist of long flattish pieces of hard slate rock or other material found suitable for the purpose.  They are usually about 6 or 7 inches in length, narrow at one end, and ground away to a good cutting or chopping edge at the other and wider end.... I have seen a similar implement in the Smithsonian Museum at Washington, with a wooden handle attached by thongs of hide, in the form of an adze.  It looked as though it had been used for dressing down sticks for spear handles etc., and possibly for hollowing out wooden troughs... No. 9 stone adze with wooden handle attached.

Howley 1915 Plate XVI. The hafted adze head is No. 1,
shown here without an attached handle.

When Howley mentions "Celts" in the caption he isn't talking about the European ethnic or linguistic group, he's talking about this style of wedge shaped, ground stone tool.  He doesn't indicate that the adze photographed with its handle is a reproduction, but since wood and hide preservation from the Maritime Archaic Indian period in Newfoundland and Labrador is unheard of, it seems very unlikely that this is the condition that the original artifact was found in.  In fact, Howley illustrates the adze head on its own, without a handle in another plate in the same book.  The adze head used in the reproduction is asymmetrical and has a fairly distinctive shape which is easily recognizable as artifact No.1 in Figure XVI (left).

Another view of the adze

Detail from Plate XVII showing
Howley's adze

So what we know about this particular adze is;

1)  During the years when Howley was compiling his book on the Beothuks he had an opportunity to sketch and photograph this adze head both with and without an attached handle.

2) He mentions seeing stone adzes with wood and hide lashings on a trip to the Smithsonian Museum.

The conclusion that I draw from this information is that Howley had something to do with crafting the reproduction handle for this artifact.  James P. Howley seems to have been a pretty magnanimous guy who didn't mind giving credit and acknowledging his sources.  Which makes me think that if someone else was commissioned to make this reproduction for him, that he would have mentioned it.  The fact that the handle suddenly appears to his specifications between Plates XVI and XVII in his own publication makes me think that he did it himself.

I believe James P. Howley made the red ochre stained handle and lashings for this artifact sometime before 1915, almost 100 years ago, making it the oldest known pre-Contact artifact reproduction in the Province.

Photo Credits:
1,4: Tim Rast
2,3,5: Plates from The Beothucks or Red Indians: The Aboriginal Inhabitants of Newfoundland  by James P. Howley 1915.  

Inuit Drum Props

A drum and five drum sticks

A week and a half ago, I had an unexpected request for five large, and relatively inexpensive Inuit style reproduction drums to be use as props for filming in Iqaluit. The client needed them very quickly.  I generally require 6 weeks of turn around time between an order coming in and delivery of the completed reproductions.  There is usually a fair bit of time required to source materials and then trial and error time as I construct the pieces and antique them to the clients requirements.  There are often days of drying time, which can turn into weeks in the damp St. John's springtime.  But this job needed to be done in 7-10 days.

Five prop drums.  You can't really fake this kind of drum, so they are made more-or-less traditionally, but with oversized dimensions and using some non-traditional materials.

I thought I might be able to
get a four foot diameter with
 an extra large fringe on the
 canvas.  But it added too
much weight and didn't look
 right, so I trimmed off the
excess fringe.

The original request was for very large 4 foot diameter drums that would show up in long distance shots.  We eventually settled on something more manageable, but still quite large.  In the end, the drum frames are about 32" across.  Measured across the fringe of the canvas drum skin they are 40" across, which is well over 3 feet in diameter.  Inuit drums are played by striking the frame and the drum is rolled back and forth as they are played.  The large size of the drums and the style of play puts a lot of strain on the frame and especially on the lashed and glued joint where the handle is attached.  I added a couple wood screws under the lashing to help secure the handle in place.  They are intended to be props which will be visible from a long distance rather than close up, but I still want them to be able to be functional and sturdy enough to survive the rigours of playing and filming.

The laminate hoop, before
cutting the individual frames.

Aside from the large diameter, the other modification that I made to the traditional drum construction was to build the hoop out of laminated layers of oak veneer, rather than bend a single piece of solid wood for each frame.  The main reason for that decision was to avoid steam or heat bending wood, because I always run into problems with that and I don't have the space or materials to bend and clamp five individual hoops at one time.  I would have had to bend them one at a time and I was worried that would eat up too many hours and days from the brief construction window.  Instead I made one large cylinder out of sheets of veneer glued together and then cut out five large rings when that had dried.  In essence, the hoops are made out of slices of a plywood tube.

Laying out the canvas to cut
 the drum skins.

This method of manufacture came with its own problems.  It was hard to get a perfect tight bond between all the layers of veneer, so there was lots of touch up work with glue and sawdust filler to create a solid hoop.  The veneer sheets and glue were a little more expensive than equivalent strips of solid wood, and I don't know what to expect their lifespan to be on such large drums, especially if they are played vigorously    However, the laminating technique did serve its purpose of removing the need to bend wood and at the end of the day they I think they turned out to fine looking prop drums.

They don't look too bad up close,
 either, I guess

The handles and drum sticks are simple dowels. Again, they don't require a lot of exact detail to look right on film.  The only modifications were lashing grooves cut into the drum handles and canvas and hemp cord wraps on the drumsticks.  It feels a little strange to make reproductions with so many material substitutions, but I had to keep reminding myself that these were functional props that needed to look good from a distance.  They aren't the usual sort of reproductions that I make that are held in someone's hand and need to  look authentic from a few inches away.

The five drums needed to match each other as well.  As I understand it, designs will be painted on to them as part of the filming.

They're in Canada Post's hands now.

I tested them all, and when the canvas is damp they have a rich deep "boooom, boooom" sound.  They should serve their purpose and are en route to Iqaluit by way of Ottawa.  It was an interesting job to be part of and if I get any set photos or more information from the filming I'll post some updates.  I'm anxious to hear how they hold up.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society nearly exists

L'Anse aux Meadows National
Historic Site. The Norse site on the
 northern peninsula.

It was a full weekend of drum building and planning for the soon-to-be incorporated Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society (NLAS).  More on the drums in a later post as I want to give a brief update on our second planning meeting to discuss the creation of a public archaeology society in the Province.  In our first meeting we decided that having a society was probably a good idea and we sent people off to research some of the nuts and bolts of incorporating and securing funding.  In this meeting we discussed what we found and made plans to act on the information gathered.

Ramah chert debitage and
reproductions

A dozen of us met in the boardroom over Bitters.  (Bitters is the  graduate student bar next door to the Archaeology Department on the Memorial University of Newfoundland campus.)  There were fewer people than at the first meeting, but everyone who couldn't make it sent their regrets and we picked up another handful of extra regrets from people who haven't been able to attend either meeting, but are still keen to be involved.  One of the big decisions to come out of this meeting was settling on  a name: Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society.  We are very close to landing on the final wording of a mission statement and we decided to incorporate as a not-for-profit corporation with five people volunteered to serve as directors.    We'll grab a domain name for the eventual website and try to find a few dollars to pay for expenses that come with starting up a society.  If we incorporate online, it will only cost $73, including reserving the name.  We have volunteers following up on funding sources, drafting a constitution, filing the articles of incorporation, researching charitable status, opening a bank account, and registering the domain name.

L'Anse Amour National Historic Site.
An archaic burial mound in Labrador

Our plan is to have one more planning meeting in June before everyone disperses into their respective fieldwork locations for the summer.  So if you are interested in getting involved in these early planning and foundation building stages, please get in touch, there is still room for volunteers; elfshot.tim@gmail.com.

Public archaeology programming
at The Rooms

One of the big jobs that a society like this needs done for its own benefit as well as to fulfill the requirements of funding agencies is a 3-5 year plan.  That's where we'll be looking for public feedback and seeking input from everyone who would have an interest in seeing a Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society.  What should our goals and services to members include?  We intend to hold that public planning meeting early next fall, when we all get back from the summer field season.

Photo Credits: 
1, 4) Lori White
2,3) Tim Rast

Busy, busy

Slate and antler tools in progress

Technically, its Friday evening, but it has real mid-week kind of feeling around here.  Its been a hectic week so far and I have a full weekend of work and volunteer obligations lined up, so it really doesn't feel like its time for a break.  I've been working away on a set of Palaeoeskimo and Maritime Archaic reproductions for a university teaching collection for the past couple of weeks, although I had to shuffle that work around a bit for a quick order of five drums to be used as props for filming taking place in Iqaluit within the next couple of weeks.

This is a reference artifact that I used
for the Dorset Palaeoeskimo ground
slate lance reproductions.  It was found
 eroding out of a beach a few years back,
by a member of the public.  I saw it when
 is was sent to the Provincial Archaeology
 Office for identification and cataloguing.

On Wednesday night, Lori and I popped out to see a talk on the underwater archaeology conducted by Parks Canada over the past 49 years that was sponsored by the newly formed Shipwreck Preservation Society of Newfoundland and Labrador (SPSNL).  I was very impressed by how professional and well organized the SPSNL has become within their first year of existence.  The day after his talk, the underwater archaeologist from Parks led an instructor training program for SPSNL members.  If you have any interest in diving or the maritime history of this province, I wholeheartedly encourage you to get in touch with the folks at SPSNL and become a member.  They are very conscientious about diving and helping record wrecks without leaving any impact on the archaeological resources.  They are positioned to make a very significant contribution to the preservation and promotion of underwater heritage in this Province over the coming years.  They got me excited about a side of archaeology that I know very little about.  Lori and I have our membership forms on the kitchen table ready to send off.

A reproduction of a ground slate lance, typical of the Middle Dorset Palaeoeskimo culture, here in Newfoundland.

In an attempt to save time on
the drums,  I made one
cylinder of laminated wood,
which I have since cut into five individual hoops.

This morning I was back at The Rooms, working on ground stone ulus and men's knives with a class of grade six students.  This afternoon, I was in the shed and office to work on my own ground stone reproductions, continue on the drums, and prepare for a second planning meeting for our burgeoning Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society tomorrow afternoon.  I need to get the drums finished this weekend and shipped by Monday at the latest, and then hopefully I can return to the Palaeoeskimo and Maritime Archaic reproductions more-or-less full time (along with editing one last paper).

Photo Credits: Tim Rast