ARCH 4153 Field Trip to The Rooms

Touring the Archaeology vault at The Rooms,
with Lori Temple (in green)

I've been teaching ARCH 4153 Lithic Analysis this semester at Memorial University of Newfoundland.  A good part of the course was hands-on flintknapping, especially early in the semester.  In was a fun start to the course and it gave the students first hand experience with working stone.  The latter half of the semester was dedicated to an analysis of lithic debitage collected from the Spearbank Site (DlBk-1) in the community of Cow Head, on Newfoundland's west coast in the mid-1970s.  This is the type site for the Cow Head complex.

One student's flake
sample

This is an important site for the Province and has been periodically re-examined since Jim Tuck first excavated it 40 years ago.  The most recent and systematic work was done by Latonia Hartery as part of her MA research at the University of Calgary in the early 2000s.  However, there are still many, many bags and boxes of debitage that have not been touched.  We tackled one crate of debitage this semester.  Each student was given a sample of around 250 pieces of debitage, made up of flakes, cores, and shatter and they systematically poked, prodded, and measured two dozen attributes on every single fragment.  They put in a tremendous amount of time and effort to study each piece in painstaking detail.

Sifting through the diagnostic artifacts from the Spearbank site at The Rooms

Boxes of artifacts

Earlier in March the class met at The Rooms during our regular class time to tour the Archaeology Lab with Lori Temple, the Archaeology/Ethnology Collections Manager.  We viewed the vaults where the diagnostic artifacts from the Spearbank site are stored and the students sorted through the boxes of artifacts to find examples of diagnostic artifacts from the same levels and units that their flake samples came from.  The idea was to help put the flakes and the site into context by seeing some of the tools that were being made and used at the site.

Archaeology lab space at
The Rooms

There do seem to be patterns emerging in the collection, even in these relatively small samples (the site was a quarry and the total flake count from all of the excavated material must be in the hundreds of thousands).  The students are working on their final papers right now and I'm looking forward to reading all of their results, thoughts, and conclusions.  I've been extremely impressed with the effort and commitment to the course from everyone in the class.  We have one more fun class of flintknapping and hafting stone tools and then the semester is over.  I'll certainly miss hanging out with them every week.

Arch 4153 at The Rooms

A flake attribute analysis is a lot of work.  The payoff for the students is an increased familiarity with the sort of debitage commonly found at any pre-Contact archaeological site.  The benefit to the collection is a high resolution snapshot of the way lithic resources were used.  The cost is time.  A lot of time. 

Photo Credits:
1-3, 5-7: Tim Rast
4: Lori Temple

Portable tool kit for Parks Canada, Nunavut Field Office

Composite tools for a portable
Discovery Kit

It feels so good to be getting more orders out the door!  Here is a pair of hafted artifact reproductions based on the Independence I artifacts found at Kettle Lake in Quttinirpaaq National Park in Nunavut.  I've been working off-an-on with this collection and the Parks Canada Nunavut Field Office since 2010.  Originally I reproduced the artifacts exactly as they came out of the ground and then in 2013 I traveled to Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord to host artifact reproduction workshops in the communities.

Case Closed.

The case has been re-opened.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

More Reproductions for Nunavut Schools

Thule and Dorset Harpoon
Heads

This is a second set of Dorset, Thule Inuit, and Historic artifact reproductions on it's way to Nunavut for inclusion in a traveling archaeology school kit that I've helped the Inuit Heritage Trust assemble over the past year or two.  In December, I visited Iqaluit for a few days to help deliver a pilot version of the program in the local high school along with Torsten Diesel from Inuit Heritage Trust and Brendan Griebel with Intuit Arctic Research.

Dorset Palaeoeskimo Artifact reproductions. Hafted microblades, tip-fluted endblade with antler harpoon head, chert scraper and knife blade, slate lance, and ground nephrite burin-like tool.

Thule Inuit artifact reproductions.  Ivory harpoon head with copper endblade, slate point, slate ulu with whalebone handle and chipped slate ulu preform.

 

Historic artifacts. Klik can and rifle casing.

The reproductions are buried in this 1x1m sandbox built by Brendan.  The whole kit is designed to be portable, so the sandbox collapses and fits in an action packer with all of the dig tools, artifacts, as well as the materials needed for a slate ulu making workshop.  The sand is supplied by the destination community and there is a manual with instructions for teachers to assemble the kit and lead the students through the activity.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast