Elfshot: Sticks and Stones

Hafted Beothuk Arrowhead Necklaces

2012-01-27T14:59:00.001-03:30

Hafted Beothuk Necklace

I whipped up a fresh batch of reproduction Beothuk arrowhead necklaces over the past week or so for a customer from the US. I started making these a couple of years ago after stumbling across a good recipe for making the red ochre covering colourfast. I'm counting the days to when I can spend some more time in the workshop. Starting in February I'm going to be busy with knapping demos and workshops in St. John's and Calgary. Watch this space for dates and times.

Hafted Beothuk Necklace. Chert arrowhead, wood shaft, faux sinew and epoxy binding. Red Ochre stain. $39.95 CDN tax inc.

Maybe I'll keep one. They are kind of cool.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Blogger's Choice Award Winner

2012-01-25T15:53:00.001-03:30

Elfshot: Sticks and Stones won a 2011 Newfoundland and Labrador Blogger's Choice Award in the category of Science and Technology. I mentioned this on Facebook a little while ago, but I realize that I haven't actually acknowledged it on the blog. The voting took place in October, but the winners weren't announced until January. Thanks to everyone for voting!

Why not visit the Blogger's Choice page and check out some of the other winners?

Photo Credit: Blogger's Choice Badge, NL Blogroll.

What's a Trillo?

2012-01-23T17:23:00.001-03:30

The dashed pattern is made up of flint blades

A trillo is a threshing board that uses knapped flint blades embedded into a wooden sled to separate grain from straw. Its an example of a knapped stone tool that continued to be used in agriculture into the 20th century in parts of Europe. This is the first trillo that I saw in person. It was hanging in a museum in Lourdes, France. The wood takes on a incredible polish and I've seen photos of trillos transformed into beautiful rustic doors, cabinets, and tables. The polish comes from hundreds of hours of the sledge being pulled around and around in circles over harvested grain.

I didn't realize at the time that the painting showed a trillo in use. Please excuse the fuzzy photo, but I think you can make out the farmer standing on the trillo as it is pulled across the cut grain by a pair of oxen. The blades cut the grain from the stalk.

The front is slightly upturned to slide over the grain.

From what I understand, each flint was hammered into place by hand. I can't find any reference to adhesives being used.

This reminds me of an craftsperson I read about on the Canadian Prairies who would make furniture from the grain polished wood that he collected from torn down grain elevators.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

This Blog is having a Snow Day!

2012-01-20T13:52:00.000-03:30

Here's a picture of some Microblades.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Tip-Flute Spalls and Preforms

2012-01-18T17:20:00.000-03:30

A tip-flute spall and preform

I took a few extra artifact photos yesterday that aren't for the report. These are just reference photos for me to use the next time I need to make tip-fluted endblades. In the Arctic, tip-fluting is a unique characteristic of Dorset Palaeoeskimo endblades. The tip-flute spalls that are produced as a by product of the technique are just as diagnostic as a finished endblade.

The tip-flute spalls on the left were removed from the left side of this preform, or one just like it. The one on the right of the preform is a right sided spall, but I don't think it came off of this preform. Its from an endblade that was more finely worked to a later stage.

I couldn't quite get any of the spalls to refit the preform, but a couple of them are such close matches to the material and pattern in the rock, that I'm sure they're part of the same knapping episode. There's a spall sitting on the preform in this picture, but its almost invisible. The spall on the right is very interesting to me because it didn't quite come off correctly. The knapper was intending to make a spall about half the width, but instead s/he accidently removed most of the face of the endblade, rather than just one edge. It preserves the complete tip of the endblade and shows how the platform was set up for a flute removal.

Viewed from the side you can see how the edge was prepared for fluting. The preform is relatively thick and although its worked bifacially, it hasn't really been thinned - its more of as alternately flaked stitched edge. The scale of this preform seems out of proportion to the finished product and there seem to have been multiple flutes removed very early in the process. Multiple tip-flutes leading up to the final two that are usually visible on a finished endblade are normal, but this piece seems excessive in a number of regards. It makes me wonder if its a practice or teaching piece. As I write that, I realize there are a couple papers about novice Palaeo-eskimo flinknappers that I should go read.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

I love it when a plan map comes together...

2012-01-16T16:28:00.000-03:30

It looks like I'm finally through the worst of the mapping. I finished up the last of the 79 site and feature maps required for the report this afternoon. I still need to print them out and see if they work on paper, but I'm almost done with building the pieces of the report and sticking them in place. After that it should just be editing it all together and then booting it out the door.

The artifacts are all labelled, although I need to take a few more photos of them and make sure that everything is organized and ready to send off for curation at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife. Those few photographs should be about the last pieces that I need to build the report. From then on, it will just be organizing and editing.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Cataloguing Dorset Artifacts

2012-01-13T18:56:00.000-03:30

A little side-blade, re-united

Another day in front of the computer, but at least this time I had bags of artifacts to keep me company. Today, I was working through bags of artifacts from a Middle Dorset Palaeoeskimo site on Baffin Island, Nunavut. It was mostly bags and bags of flakes, but there are a couple dozen tools mixed in there as well. Cataloguing is mostly tedious measuring and data entry, but it gives you an excuse to go through everything you have from a site and you often make new observations.

Bags and bags of flakes. At one point in this post I was going to comment on how weird the Dorset were, but at least they had the sense to throw this stuff out.

Believe it or not, this got me through to the end of the day

By mid afternoon the highlight was fitting together a pair of biface fragments to make a complete side-blade. Its the first side-blade from the site and its nice to add a new tool category to the inventory. Side-blades are oval or bi-pointed little tools, often bifacially worked and extremely thin. They would have been fit into slots on the sides of harpoon heads or bone lances. An endblade or arrowhead on a projectile helps puncture through hide and flesh when hunting an animal, but a sideblade like this is designed to cut and do damage on the inside.

Typical endblade (L) monstrous preform (R)

The day's big surprise came when the base of this big preform popped out of a flake bag and refit with the tip-fluted distal end that was found a couple meters away. There's nothing too unusual about the preform, except its made on a completely different scale compared to the endblades we are typically finding at these sites, which are tiny. I'm pretty confident in calling it an endblade preform, as opposed to some other tool type, because its been tip-fluted and that's a feature that appears exclusively on endblades. It would be less odd if we found a few endblades or preforms in between the two size ranges, but we haven't. Were these folks so good at hanging on to their tools that they don't enter the archaeological record until they are good and used up or is this preform ridiculously large for no obvious reason? For comparison, the preform weighs about 25 grams and the finished endblade beside it is less than 1 gram. Flintknapping is a reductive process, but you really don't need to make your preforms 25 times the size of the finished product. And when it broke - why throw it away? Every single tool found on the site could fit inside either half of the broken preform several times over. It was good stone, so why not re-use it?

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Flintknapping Demonstration Notes

2012-01-11T09:55:00.000-03:30

Dorset knife on the tarp

I did the first Open Minds flintknapping demonstration of the season yesterday at The Rooms. It was for grade five students who are spending the school week in a classroom in The Rooms, getting a behind the scenes look at the Provincial Art Gallery, Archives, and Museum. For today, I'm going to pretend that no one reads this diary and make a few notes for myself for future demonstrations.

The toughest question that I got was; "Why do you knap on your lap instead of a table?"

I always work on my lap.

I don't think I've ever had that question before and the short answer is "Because that's how I was taught." There are knappers who do amazing work using benches or tables as support. It seems especially well suited for pressure and punch knapping. I do want to practice more with punches, so maybe I should try working on benches from time to time. I use small wooden anvils in the workshop that I do punch work on, so maybe I should bring one along to the next demo to show that there are different ways to work stone tools. Just because I'm comfortable working one way doesn't mean that's the way everyone did it in the past.

I usually use obsidian in classroom demonstrations. Its not local, but its more predictable than the Newfoundland chert that I use when making artifact reproductions.

The best new addition to the demo is the "Caribou hunt" detachable foreshaft demonstration.

Interchangeable foreshafts

I stumbled on this last spring and need to remember to make time for it in each demo because it really gets the kids on board. I have one Maritime Archaic spear shaft and five matching foreshafts with stone points. To demonstrate one reason why people would make composite tools with detachable foreshafts, I tell the kids that they are a caribou herd and I'm a hunter. With one spear and a bag of five foreshafts I can take down many caribou at one time. With the first foreshaft hafted in the spear, I pick a kid/caribou to "stab" - they hold on to the foreshaft and I pull away the main shaft, refit it with another foreshaft and pick another kid/caribou. The most important thing is to slaughter the kids equally, I stabbed a row of boys the first time, and the girls complained it wasn't fair until I stabbed them as well. Once the kids understand that people made complex, composite tools with interchangeable parts many new avenues of discussion open up.

Lots of reproductions on the tarp help generate discussion during the demonstration. Passing them around keeps kids engaged.

The wobbliest point is talking about the rocks before the demo starts.

Reproductions and raw materials

I need to talk about the rocks a bit to set things up, but kids don't really get drawn in until the first flake gets knocked off with the hammerstone. Maybe I need to do that right away, right after "Hello, my name is..." crack off a big flake and then talk about rocks and what the demo is going to be about. That would probably get their attention earlier and hold it longer.

The best advice I ever received on giving flintknapping demos was not to expect to do your best work. Save that for your workshop and bring those examples along, but in a demonstration, its ok to lower your expectations. You don't have the time to set-up every platform and plan every flake like you do at home, so don't expect the same results.

Photo Credits:
1,2,4-7: Tim Rast
3: Michael Burzynski

Sleeping platforms and heat reflectors

2012-01-09T11:12:00.002-03:30

Dolomite slabs used in a tent ring

A conversation on Facebook following Friday's post about the ulu preform, reminded me of one of the other interesting aspects of the site where the ulu pieces were found. The site was located in a boulder field along a large river valley on northern Baffin Island, Nunavut. I think one of the reasons that this specific site location was selected was the presence of large, splitting dolomite boulders. The boulders were pulled apart and the flat slabs used as building materials on the temporary tent shelters erected on the site.

A boulder field like this could be turned into a comfortable campsite. The round boulders are used to hold down the edges of tents and the flat slabs (like the splitting dolomite boulder in the foreground) could be peeled apart to make a level sleeping surface and propped up to make hearths and heat reflectors for soapstone lamps.

You're looking at the footprint of an old tent. It might look random at first, but there is a flat pavement of light coloured dolomite slabs in the center of the photo that would have been inside the shelter. Compared to the irregular surface of the boulder field, this creates a relatively flat and slightly elevated sleeping area. Facing the sleeping platform towards the right of the photo is another light coloured boulder which has been propped at an angle, that I think was used as a heat reflector for a soapstone lamp. People would have slept with their head towards the edge of the platform nearest the heat source. There is a rough oval of round boulders around the sleeping platform that would have been used to hold town the edges of a skin tent.

The tent ring and sleeping platform in the photos here was relatively small and was probably a small temporary shelter used by a couple people. Perhaps brothers out hunting caribou, or a young married couple travelling with their family. The image on the left from www.bcadventure.com shows a comparable shelter with a pine bow covering. To see what a seal skin version of this shelter might have looked like, check out Rudy Brueggemann's photo of a "Seal-skin Tent" in Greenland (look for the tie down rocks sitting on the edges of the sealskin). Annie Pootoogook's drawing, In the Summer Camp Tent, shows the arrangement of people sleeping on the sleeping platform relative to the lamp or hearth, although in the modern setting the stone platform has been replaced by mattresses and the lamp is now a Coleman stove.

After we mapped and excavated the sites we tried refitting the slabs and the large stones in the sleeping platform refit with the slab used as a heat reflector. If you wanted to, you could stack up the whole tent and put it away like a giant deck of cards.

Naturally fractured dolomite boulder

There were plenty of unused dolomite boulders scattered across the boulder field. Dolomite's tendency to fracture into slabs made it a valuable building material in a treeless landscape dominated by glacially worn round boulders and cobbles. They are kind of ready-to-assemble house kits, if you know what you are looking for.

Photo Credits:
1-3: Tim Rast
4: BC Adventure Network
5,6: Tim Rast

Chipped Slate Ulu Preform

2012-01-06T09:38:00.002-03:30

Ulu Preform, Baffin Island, Nunavut

We found this ulu preform broken in five pieces and hidden in plain sight on a boulder ridge overlooking a river valley this summer. It looks like it was broken in manufacture and discarded where it broke. Artifacts like this aren't as pretty as finished tools, but they have their own stories to tell. The work done up to this point on the ulu blade would have been erased by the grinding process, so it gives us a glimpse of how these tools were made.

Reproduction and Artifact

The first thing that struck me about the blade was how large it is. I'm used to seeing the worn down and resharpened blades in museum collections and sometimes forget how big they were when they started. There are some little slate ulus in the collections from Labrador with blades that have be so worn down that they look like toys. If this blade was finished and hafted like the reproduction in the photo it would have more than an extra inch of useable blade.

The Hot Side

The ulu preform is uniform 5-6 mm thick, with the thickest portion toward the blade edge. Its more-or-less a quarter circle, with a squared edge at the top where the handle would attach and edges that are a little shy of 90 degrees from each other. It would have been about 25 cm wide across the blade and about 15.5 cm tall from blade to stem. The blade and both edges are worked by short, bifacially removed flakes. The squared edge across the top wasn't chipped - it was already the right shape.

Chipped slate blades in manufacture

There's really only a few minutes worth of work done on the blade up to this point, although the stone isn't from the immediate area, so the person who broke it still probably regretted it. Maybe they selected a couple nice flat slabs from the outcrop and had a back-up slab on hand to start working when this one broke, or maybe they had to walk all the way back to the stone source. The reproductions on the left are from the ground stone workshop I taught in Calgary last winter. The blanks were trimmed from slate slabs using hammerstones, and look pretty much identical to the archaeological example. Nice work folks!

The working edge was trimmed bifacially. Which is interesting, because ulus are generally sharpened on only one face. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, I also find it easier to trim the stone bifacially and add the unifacially ground edge at the end.

The blade, in situ

Despite the stone's best efforts to blend in with its surroundings, a couple of the sharp eyes on the crew were able to pick the pieces out. The four pieces from the top of the preform were found within a few centimetres of each other and the blade section was spotted a couple metres away. There were a few tent rings and a cache on the same ridge, but the preform wasn't found directly associated with any particular structure.

The lichen gives the impression of great age, but I've been told that this sort of jewel lichen can grow within a few years, given an adequate supply of bird poop.

Arctic Camo - two pieces in this photo

Its tough to date. The style is certainly Inuit and slate tools were made from the time the Thule arrived in the Eastern Arctic by 800 years ago up until the 20th century. There's nothing at the site to suggest that its recent or historic, so it probably falls somewhere between 100 and 800 years old. My hunch is 100-200 years old, but I don't really have anything to support that.

It might have looked something like this in the mind of the maker.

Photo Credits:
1-3: Tim Rast
4: Michael Turney
5-9: Tim Rast

Back at my Desk

2012-01-04T15:09:00.000-03:30

More maps...

I'm back to the maps again. I've finished all the site maps and all the feature maps for sites where we didn't excavate or find artifacts. Now I'm going through the bags of artifacts and finishing up the artifact catalogs. Once all the artifacts are accounted for, labelled and measured I plot them on their respective feature maps.

The maps have deeper stratigraphy than the sites

Since October, the end has always seemed about 4-6 weeks away. Hopefully this is the final pass through the maps. All the rocks are digitized at this point, its just a matter of layering the artifacts in, cleaning up the lines and adding the legends, scales, and other necessary labels. I have about 50 site and feature maps completed and there are another couple dozen feature maps left to do. Now it seems like the end is about 3-4 weeks away.

A friend sent me this picture of me in the field. Somehow the fieldwork makes all this report writing worthwhile. I forgot how protective I get of my lunch during the summer.

Once its in the thermos, its my coffee.

Photo Credits:
1,2: Tim Rast
3: Claire St-Germain

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T15:50:00.000-03:30

Fireworks, St. John's, NL Jan 1, 2012

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Caffeine in the Mornings

2011-12-30T09:11:00.001-03:30

Espresso in the house!

I don't go far without my thermos mug of coffee and I carry bags of chocolate covered espresso beans like most people carry gum, but I'm not much of a coffee shop fan. I was forced into experimenting a bit more with coffee this fall, because I couldn't figure out how to order a regular black cup of coffee in French or Spanish. I liked it. Now we have an in-house espresso machine, which is the most used toy from under the tree this season.

The cup and saucer (and machine) are from Home on Water St. and we're currently enjoying Rocket's Holiday Blend espresso. The fruit bowl and plate are by Alexis Templeton and the table cloth is a Basque tapestry we bought in San Sebastian. (Apologies to everyone who came here expecting to see someone gutting a seal. I'm on vacation.)

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Wormwood in the Evenings

2011-12-28T10:50:00.000-03:30

Lori found us new Absinthe glasses for Christmas. Absinthe has quickly become my spirit of choice this winter. I love the licorice taste and the clean blue flame on the sugar cube. Its a drink to enjoy with friends in front of the fire, especially if you want to feel like you're up to no good.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-26T09:45:00.000-03:30

If you need me, I'll be right here.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Lourdes-travaganza! Spectacular! Spectacular!

2011-12-23T11:30:00.000-03:30

Lourdes, France.

Blending in with the pilgrims.

A little chapel in the woods

Shopping!

For the water...

We accidentally did the entire Stations of the Cross looking for a family heirloom.

Our Local.

Shopping!

The Celtic Cross - Our quest is at an end!

You won't like the frankfurters - "they're plastic".

Big Mary.

Little Mary.

I can't judge. My hometown has a spaceship on the highway.

Shopping!

The Grotto.

Shopping!

Photo Credits:

1, 3-9, 11-15, 17, 19, 20: Tim Rast

2, 10, 16, 18, 21, 22: Lori White

Bowring Park in the Snow

2011-12-21T07:30:00.000-03:30

The lights are on in Bowring Park. With the snow last night in St. John's, the park is beautiful. I stopped by for walk around the pond after a brutal day at the computer and a slightly more productive evening of Christmas shopping. There's no cabin trip this year, so I'll have to make an effort to get out and enjoy the city.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

I Hate Writing Reports

2011-12-19T17:20:00.000-03:30

Wish I was here.

or here...

Not here.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

The Road to Cabrerets

2011-12-16T07:30:00.000-03:30

Cabrerets, France

Cabrerets is an impossibly picturesque village built into the limestone cliffs that contain the Célé and Sagne rivers in southern France. These limestone hills are dotted with farms and towns and riddled with caves, including many containing paintings from the Upper Palaeolithic. Lori and I took these photos of Cabrerets and other towns on our way to visit the cave at Pech Merle...

The ruins on the left are the called The Devil's Castle (château du diable). Its was built by the English and destroyed by the French over 600 years ago. Cabrerets.

Cabrerets houses. Who wouldn't want to live here?

Photo Credits:
1-3, 5-8 Tim Rast
4, 9, 10: Lori White

Pech Merle Museum Lithics

2011-12-14T19:46:00.000-03:30

Upper Palaeolithic Blade Tools

The museum at Pech Merle had several display cases dedicated to the prehistory of France, from the Lower Palaeolithic through to the Bronze Age. There were a lot of bone, antler, ivory, metal and ceramic artifacts on display, but of course, I was drawn to the stone tools. Here are a few photos of some of my favourite pieces from the Musée Amédée Lemo zi at Pech Merle.

Chopping Tool, Burin, and Retouched Blade

Most of the artifacts in the exhibits were found at other sites. There weren't many stone tools found in the actual cave at Pech Merle. In fact, the three pieces in the photo on the left are the only lithics to have been found there. The card with the chopper, burin and retouched blade explains that, with the exception of the paintings, the only evidence of prehistoric people in the cave are some footprints, some charcoal and these three stone tools. Which is interesting in itself - although people were visiting and painting the walls and ceilings of caves like Pech Merle, they weren't living in them.

The Lower Palaeolithic had stone industries based on working cores into heavy, chopping bifaces.

Later, techniques focused on the flakes removed from the core. I like this illustration of the Levallois technique. Using the cut away drawing of the flake is a really effective way of explaining the process visually.

In the Upper Palaeolithic the emphasis was on specialized flakes called blades, which were in turn pressure flaked into a variety of different tools. The blade tools on this board belong to the Périgordien Tradition.

More blade tools in all shapes and sizes. In these examples, most of the retouch is along the edge or end of the blades and you can still see the original dorsal surface of the blades.

These Solutrean tools have similar outlines to the blade tools in the previous photo, but look how they've been shaped and sharpened with precise, patterned pressure flaking covering the surface of the blades and bifaces. A little more work and a little more control over the final form.

I don't really know anything about this board, but I'll take a guess. I think its showing the chronological sequence between the Sauveterrian and Tardenoisian and the older of the two is at the bottom, because they look a little coarser and there are pottery fragments in the top row. Alternatively, these are prosthetic nose pieces and this shows the evolution of Klingon foreheads from the old Star Trek to the Next Generation.

Meticulous pressure flaking on blade based tools continued into the Neolithic and chalcolithic. This big dagger was made on a blade, ground and polished and pressure flaked. It still has the long curving arc of a blade.

This photo shows how these big blades would have been hafted. I'm not sure what the wrapping material is, it looks like a root to me, but it could be leather.

In the middle on the right, you can see how the flint blade (silex in french) is glued against a wood handle with tar and then wrapped with a binding material to create a grip.

Meanwhile, spear points became arrowheads and took on a lot of different forms.

The caption for the above panel. The points aren't in exactly the same place in the display and on the caption, so go by the outline, not their position on the board. And they're in French and when I try to Google translate them they make no sense so... good luck!

Ground stone tools are one of the hallmarks of the Neolithic. You can see that the blank was still chipped out of flint, but the final shape and working edge of this axe were done through grinding and polishing.

Another ground stone axe.

The appropriately named Chacolithic, or Copper Age, saw the introduction of copper into the tool kit. I like this little panel - it makes me think of Elfshot. Not my business Elfshot, but the actual little arrowheads that people used to find. When I picture Elfshot in my mind's eye, these are the kinds of arrowheads that I imagine.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

All photos were taken at the Musée Amédée Lemo zi, Centre de Préhistoire du Pech Merle, Cabrerets France.

Artifact Reproductions at Pech Merle, France

2011-12-12T18:28:00.001-03:30

Flint blade in wood handle, with pitch glue. (Neolithic)

The cave at Pech Merle is one of the most spectacular cave art sites in southern France. Of the handful of caves that we visited this fall, it was my favourite. It was kind of overwhelming. The setting of the cave (above ground and below), the paintings, the history, the interpretation, the region, were all unbelievably rich. I've been putting off writing about it because there's too much that I want to say. Maybe if I break it down into some more focused topics, it'll seem less daunting.

Burin in bone handle (Palaeolithic)

So, with that in mind, here are a few photos of the artifact reproductions in the museum at Pech Merle. I'm afraid that I don't know who the craftsperson(s) is that made these reproductions, but I certainly envy them. Some of them may have been made from scratch, but I think many of them are actual lithic artifacts hafted into modern organic handles. If you made these - Well Done! - and I'd love to hear from you and give you credit for your work.

Flint scraper in bone handle (Palaeolithic)

Ground and polished Neolithic axes with antler sockets. I don't think these are reproductions, but they are refit so they aren't out of place here. The antler sockets would have fit into a heavy wooden handle.

A spindle whorl (Neolithic). If you've ever visited L'Anse aux Meadows, then you may have seen the Norse interpreters using a drop spindle to spin wool into yarn. They haven't changed much in a few thousand years.

Neolithic sickle made from flint blades fit into a slot in a curved branch. Simple and sharp.

The Neolithic Cabinet, Pech Merle. Artifacts and Reproductions mixed in to help flesh out the incomplete pieces.

Another hafted scraper (Palaeolithic). I'm not certain, but I think some of these reproductions might be original stone artifacts mounted in modern handles. The good thing about using natural glues is that they are generally pretty easy to reverse, so there's no danger in permanently defacing the stone tools.

Mousterian spear (Palaeolithic). One of the simplest and earliest types of composite spears. Its held in place with some sort of resin glue in a split wood shaft. There are no notches or stem on the point, the binding is there to clamp the split wood closed and prevent further splitting.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Beothuk Artifacts in the Mary March Museum

2011-12-09T18:29:00.009-03:30

Beothuk Necklace

Throughout the school year a lot of students and teachers wind up on this blog looking for information about the Beothuk. Here are a few photos of Beothuk artifacts that I took through the glass at the Mary March Museum in Grand Falls-Windsor. The Beothuk were the aboriginal inhabitants of Newfoundland when the Europeans arrived and began settling the Island.

Little Passage/Beothuk Arrowheads

Most of the artifacts in these photos would date to the time period after the Europeans arrived. Archaeologists call the pre-contact cultural remains of the Beothuk the Little Passage complex. They're the same people, its just that Little Passage sites are earlier and don't have any European trade items and Beothuk sites are more recent and often contain trade goods. For a better understanding of how the Beothuk fit into the pre-contact history of Newfoundland, you can check out this recent post on Inside Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeology called: The Dating Game Part 2: Newfoundland.

The Beothuk used a lot of iron brought to the Province by French and English fisherman, and although some items were specifically brought over to trade with the Beothuk, there was never a successful, formal trade relationship in place between the groups. On occasion, the Europeans weren't done using the items when the Beothuk picked them up and they didn't necessarily leave anything in exchange. Awkward.

Beothuk bone pendant.

Beothuk bone pendants.

Ochre stained birchbark containers.

Brichbark containers (top view)

Glass beads.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Building Up Site Plans

2011-12-07T14:28:00.001-03:30

Illustrating the layout of the site

I'm working on site plans at the moment. These maps show the distribution of archaeological features, excavations and test pits across the site. Hopefully there will be enough topographic information included that you can place those features into their local landscape. They should give you a sense of the setting of the site and what archaeological investigations have taken place there.

Each little square in the grid is 1 x 1 m, and each heavier square is 10 x 10m

A tent ring and two 2x2m units

I'm working in Adobe Illustrator to combine information from a lot of different sources into one (hopefully) concise and cohesive map of each site. I'm copying and shrinking the feature maps that I was tracing a few weeks ago and dropping them into their correct positions relative to each other and the landscape. The landscape information comes from site plans collected in the field this summer or in previous years. By law, in Nunavut, you can't excavate a site in the same year that you find it. That means that the sites we were digging this year were found, mapped, and recorded in previous field seasons, so I almost always have some good map data to start with.

On this layer I'm adding some radial information. I have the angles and distances recorded to each test pit from the southwest corner of the tent ring we excavated.

The greenish square is a scan of the paper map we drew in the field. It includes the distribution of archaeological features as well as the frost cracks, which were useful in tying the site into the air photo to help fill in the overall shape of the elevated beach terrace that the site was sitting on.

Luckily we have some hi-res air photos of the area

When I don't have detailed site plans to work from, I like to build my maps off of air photos. I record enough landmarks in the field to tie the site into aerial photographs. Then, working from the air photos, I trace out the landscape features that are prominent and would be easily recognizable by someone unfamiliar with the site. In the map I'm working on today there is a prominent system of frost-cracks, criss-crossing the site. Those cracks show up on the ground and air photos and anyone holding the finished map should be able to orient themselves on the ground by following the cracks.

This is a view of the site from the lower left (southwest) corner of the map. You can orient yourself using the pattern of linear frost cracks. This terrace is a raised beach ridge and the high tide line has dropped about 30 meters and moved 700 metres north since the site was initially occupied.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Labrador CURA Brings Slate Ulus to the Classroom

2011-12-05T12:48:00.021-03:30

A nearly finished slate ulu

During the last week in November, the Labrador Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) members toured communities in southern Labrador. They traveled from town to town and presented their latest research and initiatives to the communities that the project is partnered with.

Grind stone in the classroom

One aspect of the trip was providing a heritage program to school kids. I couldn't attend, but I supplied a ground stone tool making kit. Kids could have a go at making their own slate ulus, using traditional tools and techniques. It sounds like everyone had a good time. Thanks to Amy, Andrew and Michelle for delivering the program!

Andrew helping set up a bow drill on a slate ulu blank

Michelle showing how the drilling is done

Using a nephrite bit to drill through a slate ulu blank

Amy helping tie the handle on to a drilled slate ulu

Slate blanks, handles and string

Photo Credits: Phillip Cairns, courtesy of Labrador CURA

Old World Lithics at MUN

2011-12-02T08:00:00.000-03:30

Have you ever seen a spear point made by a Neandertal? Or a hand axe that is hundreds of thousands year old? Did you know that you can see stone tools from the Upper, Middle, and Lower Palaeolithic on public display right here in St. John's? They're exhibited in a cabinet in the Queen's College Great Hall on the MUN campus, alongside other displays dedicated to sites and material culture from this Province and abroad. The Archaeology Department at Memorial University of Newfoundland has a small exhibit displaying flint artifacts on permanent loan from the Royal Ontario Museum.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Elfshot Wants Back In

2011-11-30T16:38:00.001-03:30

Maritime Archaic Ground Stone

Elfshot is creeping its way back into my routine. I still have a lot of writing and analysis left from the summer so I can't afford more than a few hours in the evenings and weekends to work on artifact reproductions or jewelry, but hopefully early in the new year I'll be back in the workshop full time. In March, I'll be returning to Alberta to help deliver the Archaeological Society of Alberta's flintknapping workshop in Calgary and do a presentation for the Society's Medicine Hat chapter.

Maritime Archaic Indian ground stone artifact reproductions. Gouge/Adze celt and hafted axe (argillite), Lance (slate), plummet (soapstone)

This past weekend I made a double-bitted Maritime Archaic Indian gouge/adze for a (very patient) customer, and the weekend before that I prepared a traveling ground slate kit for a kid's ulu-making workshop delivered by Labrador CURA researchers. In the meantime, I've been filling Christmas jewelry requests as best I can and working on quotes for Spring 2012 work. Its too early to go into detail, but I'm very excited to have some major projects in the works with national and international museums, universities, and parks.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Modelling Artifacts in Autodesk 123D Catch Beta

2011-11-27T21:28:00.001-03:30

Ground Stone Gouge Rendered in Autodesk 123D Catch Beta

One of the challenges of making a good artifact reproduction is coming up with good reference materials. A photographic plate in a published report rarely has enough information for me to work from and its not always possible to have the actual artifacts on hand while I make a reproduction.

A dirty job

I usually need to see the object firsthand and take a set of photos and measurements, but there are always questions that come up as the work progresses. When I heard about the free 3D photo editing software called Project PhotoFly a few weeks ago, I was eager to try it out on artifacts. In theory, I'd be able to transform a set of 2D photos into a fully rendered 360 degree computer model that I could then manipulate and view at home. There needs to be separation between the dust of the workshop and the cleanliness of the lab and this could help bridge it.

The blue wireframes of Project PhotoFly are gone in 123D Catch

Project Photofly is now called 123D Catch Beta and there have been some minor changes in how it works, but its still free, fast, and powerful. 123D Catch Beta takes a folder of 40 or 50 photos and processes them into a 3D model. It works with objects, room interiors, building exteriors and even people. I want to use it to create free floating 3D models of artifacts from digital photos. So far, I can do that, except for the free floating part.

Trimming leaves holes

In the models that I've been able to make, the objects stay fixed to the surface they were photographed on. Its possible to trim around the artifact so that you don't see the table or pedestal that its sitting on, but that leaves a hole in the object where it made contact with the surface.

Fly-through animations of the model can be exported to youtube, like this one:

The model shows the camera's position for each reference photo

I thought that I'd be able to make a complete 3D object by moving the artifact around to take photos of it from all sides, but that doesn't work. The program reads all of the information in the photo while assembling the 3D model and gets very confused if the object in the foreground changes, but the background stays the same. The software is designed to work with fixed objects and a photographer moving around and taking many images of that stationary scene from multiple angles. Perhaps a completely neutral background without any shadows could allow you to rotate the object and keep the camera in a fixed position, but I don't have the set-up to attempt that.

I had decent results on the weekend taking photos of a reproduction ground stone gouge in my living room. I mounted the gouge on a glass candlestick so that I could get photos of its underside. Making this model taught me how important the set up and initial photography is. The software is capable of quickly and accurately rendering a detailed model from good photography, but I found making changes to that model after the initial rendering much slower and more limited. The models, called "scenes" in 123D Catch, are created on a remote server and then downloaded to your computer. On my machine, it takes about 10 minutes to go from a folder full of photos to a 3D scene.

Manual stitch gives the illusion of control to the user

The scene can be rotated, zoomed, cropped and exported as an animation. Missing or poorly fit images can be manually stitched into the model and then re-submitted to the server and a new model with the new information will be rendered. The manual stitch option is good to include, but it sucks up time and I found it was quicker and easier to just re-shoot the missing photos and try building the model from scratch again. For practical purposes, the only post-rendering scene manipulation that the software offers is cropping. If the shape of your model doesn't look right after the initial render its very difficult to improve it through editing. And be careful with your cropping - there isn't an undo button. Seriously, why isn't there an undo button?

As good as the photos you feed it

Autodesk 123D Catch Beta is powerful at rendering images into a 3D scene, but limited in its editing functions. In order to make better models you need to set-up and take better photos and not count on being able to manipulate the scene within the program. If the goal of the Beta version is to prove the concept and create a desire for a fully functional 3D photo editing suite, then I think 123D Catch performs perfectly.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast, screen captures from Autodesk 123D Cactch Beta and Project Photofly.

Polar Bear Watch Scotch

2011-11-25T18:03:00.001-03:30

Polar Bear Monitoring my Scotch

We had one polar bear hang around the camp towards the end of the season this summer. It was a young, curious male, who kept wandering back around for another look and another sniff to see what we were up to. On the first night that the bear showed up the camp manager instituted a 24 hour bear watch. I was on the midnight to 3AM watch and two other archaeologists had the 3AM-6AM shift. It was cold and dark and the three of us agreed to use our extra three hours worth of pay to buy a nice warm bottle of scotch.

This fellow swam up and hung around for a few days.

At least one of us got some rest.

Checking out his tracks

I picked up my bottle in Frankfurt at the airport's duty free shop on the way home from our Spain/France vacation. I thought my 3 hour bonus would stretch a little farther than usual there and I picked up a bottle of 21 year old Ballantine's. I haven't opened it yet, so I can't comment on the flavour, but I do enjoy the more affordable Ballantine's blend available at the NL Liquor stores. Unless something else comes up, I'm thinking that I'll have my first taste to celebrate finishing the report.

Lori loves that our living room is turning into a den.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

I Don't Miss Mosquitoes

2011-11-23T16:15:00.001-03:30

Our 2011 Christmas Card?

Every day I'm going through photos from the summer to illustrate the report and it's making me nostalgic for the field. Unfortunately, there are many more dull, winter months ahead before summer rolls around again. For the moment, I'm going to try to focus on one of the few negatives of doing fieldwork in the Arctic, to try to keep the itch away for as long as possible. The fact of the matter is that the mosquitoes in Nunavut during July can make working outside miserable.

They're hard to escape.

I wanted to use this photo recently, but there's a bloody big mosquito obscuring part of the tent ring.

I recall feeling particularly crazy on this day.

On windy days, they might not be flying and biting, but they are there among the pebbles to photo-bomb your artifact shots.

Photo Credits:
1: Derrick LeGrow or Corey Hutchings (sorry, I can't recall who took the pic for us)
2,3,5: Tim Rast
4: Lori White

A Trip to Lascaux

2011-11-20T21:53:00.001-03:30

Actually, its Lascaux II... the original cave has been closed to the public since 1963. Over 11 years between 1972 and 1983 an exact replica of two of the main galleries of Lascaux was created a couple hundred metres away from the main cave. Lascaux is one of the smaller caves containing paintings, but its one of the most spectacular. Its one of very few caves that has polychromatic art, in fact, one of the figures uses 12 colours. Again, photos aren't allowed inside Lascaux so I don't have photos of the cave are, but you can experience Lascaux's incredible virtual tour here.

The drive from Rouffignac Cave to Lascaux is beautiful.

The site is on a wooded slope. It reminded me of every Provincial campground I've ever visited.

The paintings in the cave are 17,000 years old.

Like all of the sites we visited, the interpreter was fantastic. he didn't just have a few facts memorized, he was passionate about the site. He stressed that the paintings at Lascaux were not left by cavemen, but by artists building on 15,000 years of artistic tradition and experience.

The entrance to the replica cave. The million or so visitors to the actual cave between its discovery in 1940 and its closure in 1963 caused severe, although unintentional, environmental damage to the interior of the cave and the paintings. The replica cave was a very good compromise. The placement of the painted figures on the contours of the cave walls is a very important part of understanding and appreciating them. Seeing them on a flat surface doesn't do them justice, they were meant to be experienced in three dimensions.

Coming out into the daylight again.

Most of the animals on my cave art tattoo are from Lascaux. Here I am standing in front of a sign at the site.

Of course, I realized too late that its actually a sign to the Lascaux toilets. What chance do I have of understanding Upper Paleolithic art? I can't even interpret pictographs from the past decade correctly. Sigh.

Photo Credits:
1, 8, 9: Lori White
2-7: Tim Rast

How to cheer up a Sarlat wall dog

2011-11-18T16:22:00.001-03:30

Photo Credits:
1: Lori White
2-6: Tim Rast

Working with Photos

2011-11-16T10:38:00.001-03:30

4 pictures = 4000 words, right?

At work, I'm going through photos from the summer's archaeology field season and plugging them into the final report. I need to review the photos, because there is still writing and analysis that needs to be done for most of the sites and the photographic record is an important part of understanding and reporting the sites. While I'm doing that review, I figured I might as well pop some of the photos into the report at the same time. I like watching the page number go up on the report and this is one of the easier ways to make that happen.

Recording photos

Of the thousands of photos that I took this summer, about 725 made it into the official photolog. In the field, the photolog was a little white survey book that we recorded the photo number, date, site, direction, camera used, photo description and photographer's initials. On rain days that information was entered into a spreadsheet and all of the photos in the photolog were stored in a single folder (backed up in many locations, of course). These photos are technical photos that show some aspect of the sites, features, or artifacts that we felt were important to record and preserve.

The notes that go in the photo log are invaluable. Without the notes, would I remember that this pile of rocks is a cache and that this is the view of them facing northwest? Probably not.

Digging through the photolog

Now I'm going through the photolog and winnowing it down again to find the photos that best illustrate the sites for the final report. These photos, along with maps, tables and text will be the record of the sites. For newly discovered sites, they will be useful in relocating the sites in future years and in the case of mitigated sites, they are the final record of how the sites appeared before, during, and after excavation. Archaeological excavation is a destructive process so its important to keep good records as you work.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Bringing Home Rouffignac Cave Art

2011-11-13T21:53:00.001-03:30

Rouffignac Mammoth (copper etching)

On our trip to France, we visited Rouffignac Cave to see the 13,000 year old cave paintings. This was the first time I'd been in a cave or seen Palaeolithic art with my own eyes. It was an incredible experience. We had a few upper palaeolithic sites on our agenda and we thought we might get "caved-out" at some point and want to move on to something else. I don't think that can happen. Once you see one cave, you want to see them all.

Me and my Rouffignac Mammoth

The paintings and etchings in Rouffignac are known especially for their depictions of mammoths. According to the visitor's guide to the cave; of the 254 works in the cave, 157 (or 61.8%) of them are of mammoths. I was especially interested in seeing them, because I used one of the mammoths from Rouffignac as the model for a tattoo of a mammoth that I have inside my right arm. Its part of a band of cave art that goes around my arm, and includes a wooly rhino from Rouffignac as well.

Copper etching of the Three Rhinoceros Frieze, Rouffignac. Atelier Tara.

Print Shopping in the gift shop

Photos aren't allowed inside the deepest part of the cave, where the paintings are located, but the gift shop and information desk are located inside the mouth of the cave and photos are allowed there. I don't have any shots of the actual paintings,but you can see some images on the official website. The depictions of Rouffignac art illustrating this blog are from prints that we purchased in the gift shop.

Glass mammoth skull and tusks by Jean-Paul Raymond

Glass axe, even the lashings are glass

While we were visiting, there was an exhibition of blown glass objects by Jean-Paul Raymond called Fragments de Temps inside the cave. The glass was worked into horns, wood, bones, and stone objects from the Upper Palaeolithic. Visitors pass Raymond's intricate and accurate reproductions as they walk deeper into the cave.

Glass spear head in foreshaft. Notice the flint nodules poking through the chalky walls around it.

Everything is hollow glass

Weeeee!

The deepest paintings in the cave that are accessible to the public are a kilometre from the entrance, so the tours are done by train. Much of the trip is in the pitch black darkness of the cave. The tour guide has a small flashlight and will turn on lamps at specific stops along the way. The art is either etched into the wall or painted on in black manganese. Some of the wall surfaces are so soft, that the etchings were done by fingertip, perhaps even by children. We saw the caves with a trainload of kids - perhaps that's the way they were always meant to be visited.

The Ten Mammoth Frieze. The original painting, inside Rouffignac, is 29 feet long and each mammoth is about 3 feet long. The colours shown in the copper etching are also seen in the cave. A band of white calcite has formed over the lower half of the wall, covering and obscuring the legs of the two groups of mammoths, meeting face to face in the middle. The band of calcite, is one of the clues that helped establish the authenticity of the cave - it obviously formed slowly, over time after the paintings were put on the walls. Copper Etching from Atelier Tara.

Approaching the train

The cave itself is a long narrow tunnel formed by water action over the past 70 million years. In parts of the cave the floor has been dug out to accommodate the train tracks, but for the most part the passages are very uniform. You can see the walls on either side and it feels like you are travelling down a long dark tunnel with chalk and flint walls. Descending into the cave there are cave bear claw marks on the walls and several hundred metres of bear lairs; hundreds of giant nests scratched and wallowed into the clay floor. Many of the paintings are located on the far side of these bear lairs. The painters (and their kids!?) would have had to crawl through these still warm bear beds on their knees and bellies to reach the galleries in the deepest reaches of the caves.

This is a section of the Great Ceiling, located a kilometre deep in the cave. The painters would have lain on their backs and painted the ceiling above them by lamp light. (Copper Etching from Atelier Tara)

Cave Art Prints, Rouffignac and Pech Merle

On the way out we stopped in the gift shop and loaded up with books, photos, and craft documenting the cave, including the copper etchings that have illustrated this post. The four prints came from the Atelier Tara, a workshop in southern France. Having just gone through the cave, we were impressed by how accurately the prints captured the 13,000 year old artwork and now that they are framed and hanging in our stairwell, it feels like we have a little bit of Rouffignac here with us.

Photo Credits:
1, 3-8, 10-13: Tim Rast
2: Lori White
9: Rouffignac Interpreter (Sorry, I didn't get your name, but you did an awesome job! Thanks.)

Today We Remember...

2011-11-11T15:05:00.001-03:30

Photo Credits:Tim Rast
St. John's Waterfront and War Memorial 11/11/11

iDraw Archaeological Features on the iPad

2011-11-09T10:02:00.001-03:30

Tracing Rocks in iDraw

On screen digitizing took a turn for the fun this past week when I started using the iDraw app on my iPad to trace feature maps for the report I'm working on. After more than two weeks of point and click tracing in Adobe Illustrator with the mouse, the switch to the stylus and iDraw seemed like a vacation. I feel like a kid who gets to do all my homework for the next week on an etch-a-sketch. Fun!

The green insert shows the scanned paper map

iDraw is excellent for tracing drawings or maps which can be scanned as a single .jpg. Many of the feature maps that I used Adobe Illustrator for were stitched together from many small overlapping maps. Some of the rocks that I was tracing were represented on more than one hand drawn map and I wanted to be able to flip between all those different source layers as I made the final digital version. You can't do that on iDraw, yet. As far as I'm aware, you can only have a single .jpg as your base layer. That limits the number of maps I can digitize this way, but for the ones that do fit into this category, the program works great.

A photo of the feature, iDraw profile, source .jpg

iDraw is a vector drawing program, comparable to a streamlined Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. You work in layers and all the information that you create in the app can be imported into programs like Adobe Illustrator as .pdf or .svg files. There's a bit of a hiccup in opening the files in Illustrator on a PC, but once you know to expect it, its not that much of a hardship: The individual layers from iDraw have all disappeared and all the information from each layer is grouped together into one layer. At first it looks like you've lost all the layer info, but that's not really the case. All the objects from each layer are locked together into separate groups, so you can select the contents of each iDraw layer with a single mouse click and copy them into a new Illustrator layer. My maps are fairly simple at this point, with only 3-6 layers, so it only takes a few seconds to select each group of objects and paste them all onto their own layers again. I'm not sure if this happens when opening iDraw files on a Mac.

This took less than an hour to trace

My first impression of using the iPad as a digitizing tablet is that its not as blisteringly fast as I was anticipating. Drawing is faster, but only slightly quicker than using the mouse. However, its so much more intuitive and comfortable to use than I was expecting, that at the end of the day, I have more maps done than I thought. I don't dread starting the really big complex maps, because I know I won't be trapped in a chair at a desk all day. My earliest experience with digitizing maps was using a puck on a big drafting table in a university computer lab. With the iPad, you could do the same thing in a park or a big comfy chair. Its a more enjoyable experience, so I take fewer breaks, so I get more work done in less time.

Stylus improves accuracy

I think one of the reasons that the actual digitizing is a little slower than I expected is that I haven't figured out how to turn off the auto rounding on the continuous draw Pencil. I can't just trace around the rocks in one swipe, because the line doesn't want to close itself into a continuous polygon and iDraw smooths out the curves into an artistic flourish. To accurately trace the rocks you need to tap, tap, tap with the Pen and connect the dots. Its not hard, its just slightly slower. Although I do like the Pencil's artistic flourishes for going back and quickly adding surface details to the rocks to give the illusion of a 3D object, rather than just a hollow polygon. Its very easy to zoom in and out of the drawing for more detail on tricky places, but its still a good idea to use a stylus to help with your accuracy.

I find moving file with Dropbox simplest

I want to integrate the maps done on the iPad with the other maps that I did in Adobe Illustrator, so I'm not finishing the maps in iDraw. When I get all the information traced off the base map I save it to my Dropbox folder and by the time I walk over to my laptop, its there waiting for me. I'll do my final tweaking, scaling and labelling in AI. Even with transferring files between platforms and programs, its still faster and more enjoyable to do as much of the grunt work on the iPad as possible. For next season's work, I'll be thinking of ways to make more field drawings suitable for digitizing on the iPad.

Photo Credit:
1,5: Lori White
2-4,6: Tim Rast

Nikon Coolpix P500 Review

2011-11-07T18:50:00.002-03:30

I've always got the P500 handy

I bought the Nikon Coolpix P500 camera last May because of its 36x optical zoom. I've used it for work and travel over the past six months and am happy with it. Most of the summer and fall photos on this blog have been taken with the P500. Its basically an upgraded version of Nikon's P100 (read my P100 Review here), with an improved zoom and a bit of a jump from 10.3 to 12.1 megapixels.

Nikon Coolpix P500

The 36x zoom is great. Its a noticeable improvement over the 26x optical zoom on the P100. There are a few other changes, additions, and improvements from the P100, but most of these are pretty minor. Its also available in black and red. I bought the red one, because marketing works on me.

I like seeing individual feathers

I was happy with my Nikon P100, but the big boost in the zoom was too tempting to pass up. I like taking wildlife shots and filling the whole frame with the animal makes me happy. The 36x zoom is great for getting these types of shots, but requires a tripod in order to be practical. With so much zoom, the field of view is very tiny and its easy to lose track of your subject. Small movements at 36x zoom also translate into big motion blur.

I was 250m away for this shot

I primarily use the camera for web ready images, although for work, I do need photos that can be printed at a good quality resolution. I find that the 12.1 megapixels on the P500 gives sharp enough images that I can do a lot of cropping and framing on my computer and still end up with a good crisp image. At least, compared to other point and shoot cameras that I've used. All three of these surfing photos were taken from the same spot. I can't recall if I was using full 36x magnification on the close-up shots, but it was probably pretty close.

This photo was cropped a bit, but I wasn't using the zoom.

This photo and the one above were taken from the same place on the boardwalk. For this photo, I used a lot of zoom, cropped the image to frame it and the end result looks crisp enough for online viewing.

I used the Dusk/Dawn setting for this shot

All of the things that I liked about the P100 were carried over into the P500, including the HD video, panorama assist, autofocus, and flip viewfinder. I've been using the dusk/dawn setting a lot more on the P500 than I did on the P100. The HD video is still a favourite of mine. For some reason they've reversed the switch position of the Standard Definition video and High Definition video compared to the P100, which made me lose a few HD moments when I first got the camera.

Here's an example of video from the Aquarium in San Sebastien, Spain. It looks like Blogger processed some of the definition out of it, but its still pretty vibrant.

Dead batteries at remote sites suck

There were some recharging problems with the P500s when they first shipped. The batteries wouldn't charge properly and died quickly, but a software upgrade a few weeks after they were released cleared up that problem. I had to download and install the upgrade manually, but newer versions of the camera should be shipping with the updated operating system. Luckily, the P100 and and P500 use the same batteries, so I always have lots of back-ups. If I'm shooting occasionally, like in the field, I can go several days at a time before the battery dies, but on vacation days where I'm taking hundreds of photos a day or lots of videos, I'll need to swap in a fresh battery before the day is through.

One of the new settings that I've made frequent use of is the Easy Panorama feature. You just point the camera and turn through 180 or 360 degrees and the camera takes a continuous panorama around you. Its quick and fast. If you want a higher resolution photo, the Panorama Assist option is still there to help you take pictures in sequence that can be stitched together later.

The harbour at San Sebastien, shot using Easy Panorama

Baby Snowy Owl

Despite the shape of the camera, this is still a point and shoot and not an SLR. I like the versatility of the point and shoot and appreciate not having to carry around a lot of extra lenses and filters to get the shots I want. But I do feel that the P500 is about as much as I want to invest in a point and shoot. Many of the features that I like using the most, like the powerful zoom and the low light settings, require a tripod, so I'm already committed to carrying around extra equipment. If I decide to upgrade again, I think I'll switch up to an SLR. It means carrying more stuff, but I'm already doing that to take the sorts of photos that I want to take with the P500.

It works on small stuff, too.

Is this a good review or a bad review for the camera? I like the P500 and I'd recommend it, but maybe I'm feeling like I'm outgrowing point and shoot cameras. But that's not a knock against the P500 - its fun to use and I like the pictures it takes. I thought the P100 was an excellent camera and this one is marginally better, so I guess that I think that the Nikon Coolpix P500 is marginally better than excellent.

Photo Credits:
1: Lori White
2-10, video: Tim Rast

Dolmens!

2011-11-04T10:19:00.000-02:30

La Chabola de la Hechicera, Spain

At some point during the Neolithic, people across Europe thought it would be a good idea to build massive stone burial features that are referred to as dolmens or portal tombs by archaeologists today. When people talk about megalithic sites, they are talking about places like Stone Henge and dolmen, like these Spanish examples.

The stone mound was exposed

The most striking features of Dolmen are the large upright boulders that are frequently supporting a big flat cap stone. If you believe wikipedia, "dolmen" comes from a Breton term meaning "stone table". I'm no dolmen expert, but one common form seems to be more-or-less keyhole shaped, with a large open chamber and a long passage ringed by upright stones. Boulders, cobbles, and earth were piled up around these central megaliths to create a mound.

Amongst the Vineyards

When excavated, the chambers often contain human remains and burial objects. If I recall my introductory archaeology courses correctly, these things started popping up when people starting putting down roots and are tied to notions of laying claim to specific territories. There certainly is a lot of labour involved in building them and once you start filling them up with the bones of your loved ones, I can see them being a pretty important symbol of "home".

The excavation shows the edge of the mound

The three dolmen that we visited were plunked down in the vineyards around Laguardia, Spain, in the Rioja wine growing region. The largest and best preserved was La Chabola de la Hechicera (The Witch's Hut). This site was originally found and excavated in the mid-1930s and a few stone axes and human remains were recovered. When we visited there this fall, it was obviously the subject of renewed investigation. The entire mound around the central megaliths was exposed and there were photographic markers all over the central stones. Someone spent some time excavating, photographing, and mapping the site quite recently.

What do archaeologists do on vacation? Restring the caution tape around the archaeology sites they visit. You're welcome, Spain.

The rocks in the mound weren't that small, either.

La Chabola de la Hechicera (click to enlarge)

Signage!

A few kilometres away from the La Chabola de la Hechicera, we visited El Encinal. It was interesting to see this site, because all the soil and overburden were still in place. A small copse of trees seemed to explode out of the edges of the dolmen. It also wasn't cordoned off by caution tape, so we were able to get closer and explore this structure from the inside.

El Encindal didn't have a capstone in place, but the rocks tilted together to create an enclosed space.

The dolemn is in the bunch of trees. Those are the Cantabrian Mountains in the background.

What? No one said we couldn't...

I really like how the trees encircle the tomb.

Lookin out the San Martin Dolmen

Some of us were dolmened-out by the time we got to the San Martín Dolmen, but it was right next to the highway, so John and I hopped out and we had 5 minutes to poke around. Some say we took 7 minutes, but a lot of people were saying a lot of things, so who can be sure what really happened? This one had a lintel stone over one end of the passage, but it also appeared that the stone mound had been mined to build a small stone shelter, presumably for vineyard workers to use.

That's Laguardia on the hill in the background.

I'm pretty sure this came later and was probably built from the stones gathered up by the Neolithic peoples who built the dolmen.

Looking into the long, narrow San Martin Dolmen. You can see the little shelter on the left side behind the tree.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

I'm an excellent tracer

2011-11-02T10:01:00.002-02:30

On Screen Digitizing

So, at work, I'm tracing. I've been tracing tent ring rocks for the past couple of weeks and I probably have another week or two left. If I was trying to impress an old classmate, I might call it "on screen digitizing", but really I'm just tracing.

Lori mapping a 1 x 1m unit

I'm making the feature maps for this summer's final report. When we excavated the sites, we mapped each 1 x 1m unit that we dug. We excavated between 50 and 100% of each structure, so depending on the size of the feature, there are anywhere from 1 to 25 individual 1 x 1 m unit maps to stitch together and trace for each tent ring or dwelling. I'm doing the stitching and tracing in Adobe Illustrator.

Binder full of Unit Plans

The two fat binders of level records were scanned in the field on rain days, so that saves a lot of time this fall. I'm opening up all of the scanned unit plans, cutting the maps out and pasting them into a new Illustrator document were I finish scaling and fitting them together. We mapped the unexcavated areas of each feature as well, so those also need to be copied into the new document. Once everything is in the right position I make a new layer and trace around each rock with the mouse. Its pretty tedious work.

The tent ring s starting to take shape

I have another stack of feature maps to trace that don't have to be stitched together from multiple sources and I'm going to try tracing those on the iPad. I'm looking forward to that. In the meantime, if I go back to posting more vacation photos, I hope you'll forgive me, but you really don't want to see a month of on screen digitizing posts.

This tent ring map was stitched together from 11 hand drawn field maps and is ready for scaling and labeling. The two squares outline the 8 sq. m that we excavated and the rocks outside those squares were mapped separately.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Skulls and Bones

2011-10-31T09:26:00.000-02:30

Fossil Hominid skull casts at Pech Merle, France

Cave Bear skull at Pech Merle Museum

This Cave Bear skull from Pech Merle is encrusted in minerals from the cave.

Cave Bear mandible, Pech Merle.

Shark Jaw, Aquarium, San Sebastien, Spain

This Bowhead Whale skeleton in the Aquarium in San Sebastien

Bowhead Whale skeleton, San Sebastien Aquarium (Click to Enlarge)

Grinning skull casts at Pech Merle.

Hominid Skull casts at Pech Merle, France

La Chapelle-aux-Saints skull cast, Musée de l'Homme de Néandertal, France

The Old Man of La Chapelle-Aux-Saints reconstructed burial in the Musée de l'Homme de Néandertal, France

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Shades of Sarlat

2011-10-28T08:54:00.000-02:30

We had wonderful warm October nights in Sarlat and dined outside in the streets of the medieval walled city on most evenings. The golden stone of the historic buildings begged to be photographed by moonlight and gas lamp. Every night after supper, I lingered on the walk back to our rooms and tried to capture some of the magic of the place. The long exposures created some ghostly effects. Have a great Halloween weekend!

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

The Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints

2011-10-26T08:46:00.000-02:30

The Old Man

In 1908, three priests found the most complete Neandertal skeleton that had ever been unearthed. Amadee and Jean Bouyssonie and L. Bardon found the remains buried in a small cave next to the graveyard in the tiny French town of La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Over time, Bardon and the Bouyssonie brothers' discovery became known as The Old Man of La Chapelle.

The Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints was found in the cave behind the blue tarp. The hand holding a biface is a monument erected in 2008 to mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery.

Cast of the Old Man's skull

The discovery generated controversy, and since the discoverers were priests they suffered particular criticism and ridicule in the press. The initial reconstruction of the Old Man by the paleontologist Marcellin Boule didn't do the men any favours. No one had seen such a complete Neandertal skeleton before, and when Boule added flesh to the bones he created a stooping, bent kneed, fur-covered creature with divergent big toes that looked more ape than human. It was the original monkey man and helped establish the stereotype of the brutish dimwitted caveman.

Drawings of the cave and the position of the burial in the shallow depression at its base. (detail of interpretive panel)

Boule's 1911-1913 Reconstruction

Over the past century, the skeleton has been re-examined and re-interpreted several times. In the 1950s, it was discovered that the Old Man had suffered from arthritis, and perhaps this had mislead Boule in his reconstruction. But even that wouldn't account for all the primitive features that he gave the creature. Today, its seems that Boule was operating under a preconceived notion of what a Neandertal should look like and he fit the fragmentary remains of the Old Man into that model. Its too bad, he was obviously a talented anatomist and the bust he created of the Old Man's musculature, without any hair or apish post-cranial features is a remarkable portrait of a human being.

The reconstruction of the burial inside the Museum. The interpreter who guided us through the museum was fantastic.

Quartz artifacts

The story of the Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints is presented in the Musée de l'Homme de Néandertal in La Chapelle-aux-Saints. A reconstruction of the skeleton as it was found curled in the fetal position in a shallow depression inside the small limestone cave is the centerpiece of the museum. The original bones are in Paris. The Old Man was the Neandertal type specimen and La Chapelle-aux-Saints is discussed in nearly every introductory archaeology and Physical anthropology textbook ever written, but the story told in the Musée de l'Homme de Néandertal is a very personal story of the discovery of an exceptional find by local priests.

The museum had lots of hands-on interpretive materials for visiting schoolkids. If I had a regret from this trip it was that I didn't find any flint to bring home.

Dr. Gyula Skultety's Reconstruction 1996

By their nature, human remains tell a very personal story. The Old Man may have lived up to 60,000 years ago, but the inferences made from his remains suggest he was part of a family who cared for him in life. Most of his teeth were missing and had been missing for so long that the bone along the gum line had healed over. Given Neandertal's meat heavy diet, its been suggested that the Old Man may not have been able to feed himself without some difficulty. Perhaps someone was grinding or pre-chewing his food for him.

Amadee and Jean Bouyssonie and L. Bardon found the Old Man in the cave with the tarp in front of it.

The cows who watch the caves

The cave itself is about 2km away from the museum. Its one of a series of 5 or 6 small limestone caves that are visible from the side of the road. They are protected by a fence, but are still clearly visible from the paths leading past them. Cattle graze in a pasture on the other side of the road. Over the years the other caves have been excavated and artifacts have been found in them, but no other burials have been found at the site.

Panorama of the fenced off slope containing the cave. The scaffolding and awnings are built over other caves that have been the subject of excavation over the past century.

Diagram of the burial within the cave

This fall, there is a team excavating in the original cave and according to the interpreter in the museum, they are looking at the soil to help date the site and determine if the shallow depression that the Old Man was found in was made naturally or by Neandertal hands. Unfortunately they are only working on weekends and we visited the site on a Tuesday so we didn't have a chance to chat with the researchers. After 100 years, there are still stories coming out of La Chapelle-aux-Saints.

The site is immediately next to the road, graveyard and church property in La Chapelle-aux-Saints.

Photo Credits:
1-11, 13, 14: Tim Rast (Photos from inside the Musée de l'Homme de Néandertal in La Chapelle-aux-Saints and the La Chapelle-aux-Saints cave site.)
12: Lori White

Esco, Spain

2011-10-24T08:39:00.001-02:30

Church of San Miguel, Esco

We stumbled across this amazing little Spanish ghost town in the foothills of the Pyrenees. One of the benefits of renting a van for the trip was that we had a lot of control over our schedule, so when opportunities like Esco presented themselves we could pull off the road and explore them.

Esco, an abandoned Spanish hill town (click to enlarge)

Graffiti on crumbling walls

We knew nothing about this town when we wandered through it. We didn't know when it was built or why or how it was abandoned. There was graffiti on some of the walls and broken wine bottles in some of the buildings, but that debris seemed to be relatively recent. The roofs and interior floors of the houses had all collapsed, although many of the stone walls remained. The only sign of life was a small farm nestled in the far end of the town.

Only 4 people remain, tending sheep

Plaster wall design

There were power lines running through the town, but they were mounted on the outside of the walls and looked as though they were installed after the town was abandoned. We couldn't see any signs of electrical switches or outlets inside the buildings. We didn't see any plastics or wallpaper or anything at all that looked modern. Everything seemed very old.

The power lines don't feed into the buildings - they were mounted on the outside. This building seemed to have a story; Why are there bars on the window of this big building? Was it to keep people out or in?

Looking up at the church tower

Now at home in St. John's, I've been scouring the internet to find out a little more about this peculiar place. Most of the information that I've found so far is in Spanish, but there's actually quite a lot written about the town. There is an association with a website dedicated to preserving the community: ASOCIACIÓN PRO RECONSTRUCCIÓN DE ESCO and a blog dedicated to the town: Esco, un pueblo de Aragón. (Note: in the Google translated pages "Esco" is often translated as "Scotland".) The blog even has a map of the town with each residence and building identified.

Centuries of history, decades of disuse

Narrow paths

It seems that Esco was one of three communities abandoned in the 1960s as the result of a large dam built on on the Aragon River, which created the Yesa Reservoir. This is a dry province of Spain and control of the river seems to have played an important role in shaping the region for centuries. The dam which led to the abandonment of Esco was in the works since the 1920s. The town itself wasn't flooded, but the fertile fields that the residents farmed now lie at the bottom of the reservoir.

The entrance to the town

Ancient Stone walls and timbers

The dam cut off the community's means of making a living. If I'm reading the google-translated history correctly, the town has been on the books for 1000 years and the large church at its core may date to the 12th century. In AD 1047, Esco gave tithes to the Monastery at Leire. Today, the only inhabitants are a father and his 3 sons, who raise sheep.

Here's a short video clip that I took standing in front of the church and looking down on to the town:

Tumbled down town

Sunbleached roof timbers, collapsing under the weight of the tiles.

The floors and roofs were all supported by timbers and when those collapse the buildings become a hollow shell.

The main door and bell tower of the Church of San Miguel

Inside the Church

The ceiling of the church has fallen in below the bell tower. It looks like at least one floor above has yet to collapse.

The view down from the church. Lori is walking in the foreground.

Esco, Spain

Photo Credits:

1, 2, 4-9, 12-19: Tim Rast

3, 10, 11: Lori White

Sarlat, France

2011-10-21T10:26:00.001-02:30

Sarlat Building

I feel like the time that we spent in Sarlat was the heart of our trip. Originally we planned to spend 2 nights in the town while visiting nearby palaeolithic sites at Rouffignac, Lascaux, and La Chapelle aux Saints, but we just couldn't leave. We wound up staying 4 nights and even that was just scratching the surface. The town itself was laid out like a cobble and sandstone maze and every street begged to be explored and every restaurant needed to be enjoyed.

Door knocker

I really didn't know anything at all about Sarlat before we arrived there, other than it came highly recommended and that it was a medieval city. A modern town has grown up around the old walled city at its core, but the pedestrian streets, homes, shops and churches in the middle of the town seem little changed since they were built centuries ago. From what I've read, the first settlement in the area was a Benedictine Monastary founded in 720 A.D. and the city evolved and grew from that seed.

Grotto

Behind St. Sacredos Cathedral

One of many restaurants

The food was incredible

Lamb

Profiteroles

Window display from our regular bakery

Gargoyles gaurding St. Mary's Church

Lanterne des Morts, behind St. Sacredos Cathedral

Window inside St. Sacredos Cathedral

Le Tourny Restaurant

I hope this man is still walking down the Rue Montaigne the next time I'm in Sarlat.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Spain and France Holiday Snaps

2011-10-19T15:57:00.000-02:30

Happy Face in Sarlat, France

I'm home again. Lori and I just returned from a spectacular two week trip to Europe. This was pure vacation - we drank and ate our way through cities, towns, and countryside across northern Spain and southwestern France. We traveled with our friends John and Elaine, who are also archaeologists, so we geeked out on palaeolithic cave art sites, medieval towns and bronze age dolmens. We brought back books and art and I have over 3700 photos and movies on my camera alone. I suspect that over the next few weeks several more photos and stories from this trip will show up here.

John strolling a country road alongside the vineyards in the Rioja region of Spain

Inside the aquarium in San Sebastien, Spain

San Sebastien, Spain

Sarlat, France

Lori relaxing in Bilbao, Spain

The Old Man from La Chapelle aux Saints (A reconstruction of the first complete Neandertal skeleton)

La Playa de la Concha in San Sebastien, Spain

Sarlat, France by moonlight.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Blue Sky on Baffin

2011-10-17T08:00:00.000-02:30

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Pre-Dorset Endblade in situ

2011-10-14T08:00:00.000-02:30

We spotted this little endblade poking out of the ground on Baffin Island, as if someone had stuck it there. Thing is, we were probably the first people to see it in at least 3,000 years.

Maybe it was frost action that stood the small tool up, or maybe its been sticking up like that ever since it was lost. The cobbles right beside it are part of a tent ring and the endblade is just inside the front entrance.

I like how high those side notches are to create a big box base. When the point was in tact, a blade like this could have tipped a harpoon or a lance.

The tip was broken and had some retouch done on it. Perhaps it was a little scraper or they were setting it up to start removing burin spalls.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Old Barn near Ensign, Alberta

2011-10-12T08:00:00.000-02:30

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Iceberg, Baffin Island, July 2011

2011-10-10T07:05:00.000-02:30

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

L'Anse Amour Harpoon Head Reproduction

2011-10-07T06:08:00.002-02:30

Ivory Harpoon Head Reproduction

I have a few photos from the archives to share while I'm away. The L'Anse Amour burial is at least 7,500 years old and contained one of the oldest, perhaps even the oldest toggling harpoon head ever found in the New World. The tip was cracked off of the original ivory artifact, but when I made this reproduction the client requested that the tip be restored. The same is true of the other artifacts in the set, the bone point, for example was also missing its tip.

L'Anse Amour Ivory Toggle, Harpoon Head, Quartzite Biface (knife?), Antler Pendant, Bone Point (Elfshot Reproductions)

The Harpoon head didn't have a line hole, but it had a slight waist presumably to secure the toggling line. The hole in the base for the foreshaft was round.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Open Street Maps for Garmin GPS

2011-10-05T07:00:00.007-02:30

In a few hours, I'll be on a plane heading to Bilbao, Spain. We spend a bit of time in Spain's Basque Country before starting a cave and wine driving tour of southern France. We booked the car a couple weeks ago and I promised to provide the maps so we wouldn't have to pay extra for an on-board GPS. I said that I'd bring my Garmin GPSmap 62s loaded with all the maps we'd need. Then I forgot about it.

I started looking for the maps a few days ago and quickly ruled out buying them - the official Garmin Topo maps of Spain and France are over $600 US. I didn't really want to pirate them, but while searching some of the back alleys of the internet I found out about OpenStreetMap, which is a kind of cartographic wikipedia. There are a few ways to play with and download the maps on OpenStreetMap itself, but to get them onto your Garmin GPS you need to checkout another site called: Free routable maps for Garmin brand GPS dev ices (garmin.openstreetmap.nl). Which is free and awesome.

Selecting an area around Bordeaux

The interface on garmin.openstreetmap.nl is simple and the instructions are easy to follow. To select the maps you want all you have to do is highlight them on the big blue map of the world. You can pick one tile or several. When you have the maps selected all you need to do is enter your e-mail address and click "Build my Map". Your map request is added to the queue and you are sent an e-mail with a link to check on its progress. I've used it twice and the first map set was supposed to take an hour or so to build and it was actually done in about nine minutes. My second map took closer to the promised hour. When your map is ready to download you are sent a link with several download options. I picked the "Installer for Garmin Mapsource" option and it took 5-10 minutes to download my map and another 5 minutes to install it. When it was installed I could add it to my GPS from Mapsource or Mapinstaller.

Free OpenStreetMap from garmin.openstreet.nl of Bordeaux, France.

The same area from Garmin's TOPO France v.2. Not free, at all.

The resulting map looks great. I haven't had a chance to ground truth it yet, but in Mapsource, it looks as good or better than the $600 Garmin product. However, I did notice that when I downloaded and installed a second set of maps it overwrote the first set that I'd download, even when I changed the folder name. If someone figures out a way to fix or avoid that, I'd be grateful. Even so, I'm definitely keeping Free routable maps for Garmin brand GPS dev ices (garmin.openstreetmap.nl) in my bookmarks.

Photo Credits:
1) Tim Rast
2) Screen grab from garmin.openstreetmap.nl
3,4) screen grab from Mapsource on my computer.

Splash for the Cure

2011-10-03T07:30:00.004-02:30

An excellent turnout!

We had a great soggy Run for the Cure yesterday in St. John's. Despite running in the leading edge of an approaching tropical storm there were thousands of participants. As many as I've ever seen. Our little team shrunk a bit, with a couple of our anchor runners sidelined with injuries. But I think Elaine and I made up for it with enthusiasm.

Tim and Elaine, happy.

It was a slow year for me; I ran the course in 31:11. I was kind of expecting that. However, I did achieve my goal for the year, which was to run the whole route. This is the first time I've ran a full 5k since the spring, so I'm satisfied. Maybe next year I'll be faster. I've set the bar nice and low. But an event like this is really about the fundraising and I really want to thank everyone who donated to the cause and sponsored me!

Thumbs up to the RNC!

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary was great. There were a lot of officers out marking the course and cheering on the runners and walkers. The mounted unit was on hand, which is always nice to see, even on a rainy day. They helped make the event better.

Really St. John's? This is your support?

The City of St. John's, on the other hand, had traffic enforcement officers out, but instead of cheering on the runners they were ticketing their cars. I'm hoping to hear that the city will be donating the money raised from those tickets to breast cancer research. People were parked in "no parking" zones, no doubt about it, but I'd rather see the Run for the Cure benefit from the tickets written at this event than know that I live in a city that preys on charity fun runs as cash grabs.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Momentarily Home

2011-09-30T12:56:00.000-02:30

Paperwork aplenty

I'm still not really home. This is more of a stop over in St. John's to change planes. Next week I'm off again - this time for a two week vacation with friends in Spain and France. I'm trying to get another batch of paperwork done before leaving so that I don't have it hanging over my head during the trip. I think I'm looking forward to being home for good in three weeks as much as I'm looking forward to the vacation.

A few earrings in stock

I've had a few Elfshot inquiries since I got back. At the moment, I have a few reproductions and pieces of jewelry on hand, and have one or two small projects lined up before Christmas, but I really won't be back in the workshop in a big way until the New Year. I'll be available for workshops and demonstrations from the end of October on and if you are thinking about having any reproductions made before next spring, now would be a good time to contact me about them. My studio time is going to be very limited and its filling up fast.

My view for the winter

I need to commit several months this winter to report writing and preparation for next year's fieldwork. Its the necessary evil in order to get to spend the fantastic summers working in the north. If I don't do a good job fulfilling the obligations of this year's permit I won't be able to get a permit to go back next year. At the moment, that means updating Site Record Forms to submit to CLEY (Culture, Language, Elders, and Youth) the department responsible for overseeing all archaeological work done in Nunavut. Every archaeological site has its own set of site record forms which contain basic information about the location, contents, and condition of that site. One of the conditions of holding an archaeological permit in Nunavut is submitting site record forms for all the new sites found and any sites revisited within 60 days of returning from the field.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Remington Carriage Museum, Cardston, Alberta

2011-09-28T11:56:00.001-02:30

Covered Wagon

While in Alberta last week, I visited the Remington Carriage Museum in Cardston with my dad and step-mom. I can remember visiting once before when I was younger - I think my dad had some rubber put on a set of carriage wheels and he took me along to pick them up or drop them off. He used to drive horses a lot and we had a little white carriage that we'd use in weddings to haul the bride and groom around. I'm not that old - we had cars and trucks - but dad just liked using horses. I'm not the first person in my family to put an anachronistic spin on their career.

Outside the Remington Carriage Museum

Don Remington, the man whose carriage collection the museum was built around.

"This hobby can drive you buggy!" Horse and buggy - get it?

Most of the carriages are in rough shape when they come into the collection. This half-and-half buggy shows the starting condition on the left side and the restored condition on the right.

This Park Drag from London, England could carry 10 passengers and 2 grooms.

There are over 250 carriages in the collection, most of them restored and on display.

Hansom Cab - very Sherlock Holmesy

Seeing this old farm wagon brought back a lot of memories for my dad. He seemed especially fond of the cruise control feature. On the way home you could crawl in the wagon and sleep, while the horses plodded back to the farm. You'd know to wake up when the wagon stopped. Did I mention "Rast" in German means "to rest"?

Touring the restoration shop was a highlight. They work to restore carriages in the collection, but most of their work is commercial work for individuals with old buggies and wagons.

Blueprints from inside the Carriage Works recreated inside the museum.

A Piano Box Buggy like this would have shipped to the customer in a wooden crate like the one on the left.

This is the lead Bull Wagon from a wagon train. This particular one was originally used on the Oregon Trail and ended its career hauling supplies between Fort Benton, Montan and Fort MacLeod, Alberta. Notice the Borax boxes? There's an illustration of a wagon train on every box of Borax.

Stage Coach. Coaches like this were often owned by hotels. They are the precursor of the airport shuttle van.

Sheep Wagon. A mobile home for shepherds to stay in while tending the flocks.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Wild Alberta

2011-09-26T17:13:00.000-02:30

Plains Bison

I'm home in St. John's after my quick trip to Alberta. I got home just after 4 am this morning so my internal clock is still a little messed up. I'm just sitting down and going over the last of my photos. Its fun going back to the places you grew up as a tourist - you see familiar things with new eyes.

Bison Calf

This herd lives on a farm near Vulcan, Alberta.

Plains Bison Bull

The Mountains west of Cardston, Alberta.

Hawk flying

Hawk watching for movement in the fields.

Muskrat. I remember these things being cuter and less ratty.

Sunset on the farm.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

A Few Farm Photos

2011-09-23T07:00:00.000-02:30

Are you local?

I'm back in Alberta for a few days visiting family and soaking up the big blue sky. I've had great weather and some excellent road trips with my Dad and step-mom. Tomorrow we'll head down to Cardston to check out the Remington Carriage Museum.

That's the farm where I grew up in the background.

Its been a wet year here - this creek doesn't often flow in the fall.

There's lots of hawks around.

Watching for rodents stirred up by harvest.

The hawks are floating over all the fields and pastures, hunting.

The crops look great this year.

I don't know what these little red plants are. Some sort of little succulents living in the alkali soil.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

L'Anse aux Meadows Reproductions Installed

2011-09-21T06:02:00.000-02:30

I was reading Laura Eliza Silverado: Adventures in Labrador a few days ago and was pleased to see Eliza's photos of a of set of reproductions that I made for L'Anse aux Meadows back in 2009. The last time I saw these reproductions was when they were packed up and shipped back to Parks Canada along with the artifacts that inspired them.

I haven't seen the completed display in person, but luckily when Eliza and Laura were blown off course on their way to Labrador by a small hurricane they had time to visit the newly renovated interpretation centre at L'Anse aux Meadows. Eliza helped me get a hold of the sealskin and also shave it down with stone tools, so she recognized the pieces on display. She sent me these pictures. I love that they are displayed along side the original artifacts and that the sign says "Please Touch".

Photo Credits: Eliza Brandy

Labrador CURA

2011-09-19T09:57:00.000-02:30

Excavating Indian Harbour, Labrador

There is a lot of archaeological work being done in Labrador these days. In southern and central Labrador, much of the research focuses on the origin and history of the Inuit Métis. Labrador CURA, 'Understanding the Past to Build the Future', is a collaborative effort between researchers and Métis to explore the first 500 years of Métis history through archaeology, ethnography, archival research and geneology. CURAs, or Community-University Research Alliances, are partnerships between academic researchers and the public that have been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Lisa Rankin from Memorial University of Newfoundland is the project's Principal Investigator, but there is a long list of researchers, students, and community members participating.

Working Title: The People of NunatuKavut

Archaeologists working in Newfoundland and Labrador are leaders in communicating their research to the communities they work in and the public at large. 'Understanding the Past to Build the Future' is generating a growing list of articles related to the project and one of the most interesting aspects of the Labrador CURA is the way it has been using film to explore and record the Métis story. CURA has put cameras into the hands of students in Labrador so that they could tell their own stories through film. Researchers have documented their archaeological work and there is even a movie in production chronicling the history and archaeology of the Inuit Métis.

You've seen a handful of photos from CURA supported projects on this site in the past, in particular Amelia Fay's puzzling artifacts from Nain. Check out the CURA gallery for more photos of artifacts and work in progress. New information is streaming out of the project all the time - at the moment, two archaeologists are blogging about their adventures as they travel to southern Labrador to film in communities for the CURA film, The People of NunatuKavut: (Laura Eliza Silverado: Adventures in Labrador).

If you want to keep up with Labrador CURA, you can visit their website: Understanding the Past to Build the Future. , friend them on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter; @Labrador_Cura.

Photo Credits:
Photo 1: Lisa Rankin, from Labrador CURA website
Photo 2: Eliza Brandy, From Labrador CURA website
Photo 3: Screencapture from Labrador CURA website