Two NLAS Archaeology Talks at The Rooms This Week

Excavating the Mansion
house at Ferryland

This week, the Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society and The Rooms are proud to present talks by Dr. Oscar Moro Abadia and Dr. Barry Gaulton, both from the Archaeology Department at Memorial University of Newfoundland.  The talks will take place in The Rooms theatre, here in St. John's.

Dr. Oscar Moro Abadia will be speaking as part of The Rooms Engaging Evenings speaker series on Wednesday, April 1st at 7:00 PM.  His talk is titled: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Prehistoric Art: A History of Paleolithic Images. More information is available on the NLAS website. 

Dr. Barry Gaulton will be speaking on Thursday, April 2nd at 2:30 PM during The Rooms Coffee and Culture lectures.  Dr. Gaulton's talk is called: George Calvert, David Kirke, and Jim Tuck: three visionaries and their impact on Ferryland, Newfoundland. More information is available on the NLAS website.

As always, the talks will be live streamed and archived on the NLAS Arch Youtube channel.

Photo Credit: Dr. Barry Gaulton

It's all still worth it.

The Happiest Little Ulu

Its Friday night and the week just keeps rolling along.  Tomorrow we have an NLAS Board meeting and on Sunday I have housework.  I'm not terribly good at multi-tasking, so this week has kept me hopping.  Most of Wednesday was dedicated to preparation for all the different meetings that I had lined up for Thursday.  On Thursday morning I worked with the Open Minds students at The Rooms, where we talked about Inuit tools and experimental archaeology and then made ground stone artifact reproductions.

Always a favourite teacher and class to work with in the Open Minds program at The Rooms

Getting closer...

Since I was at The Rooms already, I popped down to the archaeology lab and visited the Ikaahuk artifacts.  There's a certain amount of deep breathing necessary to transition from working with two dozen 10 year olds to planning millimetre by millimetre cuts to antler and ivory reproductions.  In the afternoon I played catch-up on e-mail then in the evening we had our last evening of the MUNArch flintknapping workshop, where we worked with glues and sinew to haft stone tools.

Knapping and hafting tools in the Great Hall with MUNArch

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Many small jobs

I'm back working on the Ikaahuk artifact reproductions.  Some of them, like this offset awl are nearly finished, while others require several more days of work.   I could really use some long, uninterrupted days in the workshop.  Hopefully next week.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

MUNARCH Pressure Flaking

We had a good mix of seasoned knappers and new comers at the MUNArch pressure flaking workshop this evening.  Here is a sampling of the points produced this evening.  It's always fun to see what people come up with.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

MUNArch Flintknapping

A dedicated group in the Great Hall at Queen's College

We were delayed a few days in starting the 2015 MUNArch flintknapping workshop due to the blizzard on Monday, but we were able to begin percussion knapping on Thursday night.  Next Monday we will work on pressure flaking and then finish with hafting our tools next Thursday.

A few pieces for display

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Alaskan Obsidian

These two cores of black Alaskan obsidian were waiting at the post office for me when I got home from vacation.  The plan is to turn them into dart points and preforms for a dart and atlatl set.  I'll be using ice patch artifacts from the Western Arctic as the references to haft the points into functional darts.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Home from holidays

We're back home from a few days of sun and sand in Cuba.  The day we arrived back in St. John's was actually very nice and mild.  Then today we had a blizzard and the car is still half buried in drifting snow.   Its nice to know that there are places in the world where water doesn't have to be shoveled. 

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Pre-Dorset Harpoon/Lance Head in Progress

This is the pre-Dorset harpoon head or lance head from the Ikaahuk set.  The general shape of the reproduction is there, but there is still a fair bit of detail work left to do.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Pre-Dorset Awl

Pre-Dorset awl and reproduction.  At this point I'm shaving off a millimetre at a time to match the size, but I'm also beginning to etch in the root marks so that the finished piece will have a sense of depth to the root etching.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Thule Harpoon Head

This is such an intricate piece with so many twists and turns to it that progress is slow.  Its hard to keep it all straight in your head in three dimensions, so I plan one set of cuts at a time.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Dorset Human Figurine Pins

Small pins, based on a knapped chert figurine found at Port au Choix.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Dorset Palaeoeskimo Necklace

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Labrador Straits Historical Development Corporation Order

This is the first of six pre-scheduled blog posts.  Late last week I put an order in the mail to Forteau, Labrador.  This jewellery will be for sale through the Labrador Straits Historical Development Corporation.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast