Ikaahuk Artifact Reproductions Completed!

Artifacts (left) and reproductions (right)

It's been a long time coming, but I've finally completed the Ikaahuk Archaeology Project set of artifact reproductions.  The artifacts that they are based on range from Pre-Dorset to historic pieces and are made from stone, bone, antler, wood, iron, and ivory.  I can hand them off to Dr. Lisa Hodgetts, who is in town for the Canadian Archaeological Association conference this week, although I'm hoping she'll let me display them at my table in the NLAS Bookroom for a couple of days first.  After that they will make their way to Sachs Harbour where they will be used in interactive programs with community members of all ages.

The Artifacts (left) and reproductions (right) include a ground slate ulu, a decorated antler harpoon head or lance head, an antler awl that was made on an old foreshaft, a barbed antler harpoon head, an ivory fishing lure, an antler bola weight, an iron offset awl in carved wood handle, and a quartzite scraper.

Ivory fishing lure (left) and reproduction (right)

Thule harpoon head made from antler. 

The reproductions and the artifacts (sitting on their bags) are ready to ship home.

Artifacts on their bags and the reproductions sitting on the table. 

The reproductions as signed and ready to deliver.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Canadian Archaeological Association Conference is happening this week!

This promises to be a very hectic week.  St. John's is hosting the annual meeting of the Canadian Archaeological Association (CAA) at the Sheraton Hotel.  I'm involved to differing degrees with three different presentations; one on the Maritime Archaic at Bird Cove, one on a project that I'm working on with the Inuit Heritage Trust in Nunavut, and one on the Dorset Palaeoeskimo drum research that I've been doing with Chris Wolff.  The Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society is organizing the bookroom and Elfshot will have a table there, so that will keep me busy between the talks.  I intend to set up a tarp and have lots of reproductions on display and for sale, so if you are in St. John's, please stop in and say "Hi!".  There are many social events going on throughout the conference and on Friday afternoon, the various Territorial and Provincial Archaeology Societies are having a meeting to talk about our shared goals and concerns, so I'm looking forward to catching up with old and new friends.

Sadly, I'll say goodbye
 to the Ikaahuk
reproductions over the
conference week as well

If you aren't a member of the CAA, you are still welcome to attend talks throughout the conference for the low daily rate of $40.  As well, there are free public talks all about beer on Saturday afternoon from 1-2:20 PM.  You can learn more about the conference, read abstracts from all of the presentations, and see a schedule of public events at the conference website here.

Photo Credits:
1: Screen Capture from the CAA/ACA 2015 Website
2: Tim Rast

Declawing a Thule Harpoon Head

I spent a good chunk of the day breaking the Ikaahuk artifact
reproductions.  For the most part they broke the way they were supposed to, so it's all good.  The piece that needed the most damage done to it was the Thule barbed harpoon head from Nelson River.  The original artifact has only one remaining barb, but you can see places on the body of the harpoon head where three other barbs broke off, leaving stumps of various sizes.  The plan from the beginning was to make a fully intact version of the harpoon head, photograph it, and then break it to match the original artifact.  Below are some of the last photos of the complete harpoon head before I cracked the three barbs off (right).

The slots cut on either side of the open socket were there so that some sort of lashing (ie. sinew, leather, baleen) could be used to close the socket so that it could fit onto a harpoon foreshaft. 

The original artifact and this reproduction were both oriented in the antler tine so that the hard outer surface of the antler was on the dorsal surface.  The softer, more porous interior of the antler meant it was easier to carve out the open socket at the base. 

The dorsal surface of the harpoon head.  The small hole in the centre was for the harpoon line.  The larger hole below that is part of the gouged channel for the lashing that closes off the open socket.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

So close...

Reproductions (R)
and Artifacts (L)

Every day more and more of the Ikaahuk artifact reproductions are become indistinguishable from the original artifacts.  On each visit now I really need to focus on how I handle the pieces so I don't end up tossing the artifacts in my reproduction box or bagging the reproductions in the artifact bags.  If I absolutely had to, I could probably hand over all the pieces as they are now and be satisfied with the outcome, but I have two more visits scheduled to make last minute adjustments.  I'm mainly working on matching the colour, breakage patterns, and texture of the originals at this point.

Ivory fishing lure reproduction (L), almost done

The Pre-Dorset Lance Heads and the awls made from old foreshafts are now completely interchangeable between reproductions (bottom) and the orignals (top) 

I'm happy with the colour and texture of the underside of the antler lance head/harpoon head.  Reproduction (bottom) and Artifact (top)

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

The Pre-Dorset awl reproduction

Pre-Dorset awl reproduction (top) and artifact
(below), refit with a lance head from the same
site.

The Pre-Dorset awl is the next finished reproduction in the Ikaahuk Archaeology Project set to check off the list.  The reproduction is made from antler and the antiquing includes tea staining, scorching and hand-carved root etching.  This is the artifact that I believe was made from an old foreshaft, so part of the check to determine the accuracy of the reproduction was to match it with the slot on the Pre-Dorset lance head.  I wanted  the spatulate end of the reproduction awl to fit the original lance head as precisely as the artifact awl.  When those two pieces fit together, I felt like I could call the piece finished.  I may continue to tweak the colour and staining over the next few days, but I think this piece is done.

Artifact (left) and reproduction (right)

Other pieces, like this harpoon head are still a couple visits away from being complete.  This one has so many complex angles and symmetries, that its hard to plan too many cuts at once.  Shaving the wrong millimetre at this point could throw off the whole piece. 

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

One down, seven to go...

The offset awl from the Ikaahuk Archaeology Project set of artifact reproductions is now complete.  At this point I have to think twice about which is the artifact (top) and which is the reproduction (bottom) when I have them out on the table together.  Given that the reproduction is made from the same materials and using the same methods as the original, I think for most people it would be very difficult to tell which is the real thing and which is the copy.  The easiest way that I have to tell them apart at the moment is that the wood handle on the reproduction is a little shinier and darker than the artifact because of the oil that I applied to bring out the shine of the iron awl and to help preserve the wood.  As that oil is absorbed by the wood, even that slight difference in colour and texture should vanish.

At this point, other reproductions are a little easier to distinguish from the originals, but once the design goes on to this antler lance head and I antique it, I expect that it will be just as difficult to tell them apart.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Final touch-ups to the Offset Awl

I was putting the final touches on the offset awl today.  I scorched the wood a little with the blowtorch to antique the handle, applied some ochre staining where the awl meets the wood to match some rust on the original artifact and applied a bit of oil to try to match the gloss of the treated iron.  Hopefully it is a good match with the original when I compare them tomorrow.  As the pieces in this set are completed I'll have more time in my workshop to begin new projects.  I have a few projectile points from Western Canada and the Western Arctic to knap next. 

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

The end is in sight...

Offset Awl,
Reproduction above and artifact below

I'm very close to finishing the Ikaahuk artifact reproductions.  I suspect that starting with the next visit I'll be able to finish at least one of the eight reproductions every day.  The first one should be the offset awl.  The shaping is all done and I've fit the awl into the handle.  At this point I just need to scorch the handle with a flame a bit more to antique it and apply some ochre staining to really bring out the rust in a couple places.  If all goes well, it will be done by Tuesday. 

Bola, reproduction on the left
 and artifact on the right

 The bola and the ivory lure should be the next ones done after that.  They are very close to being done, but I may need a couple more visits to work out all of the final contours and to match the holes exactly.  On pieces like this I usually drill small pilot holes and then expand them to match the exact size and location of the holes on the artifact.

Ivory fishing lure, reproduction (left) and artifact (right) The pencil marks indicate the next places to cut.

The Slate ulu is coming along rapidly.  I had a different one started but it broke, so I had to begin again.  I'm building the reproduction around the large flake scar on the left side of the ulu.  When the shape is complete, I intend to stain it to better approach the dark grey or black stone that the original was made on.  The dark one on the bottom is the artifact, the lighter one on the right is a 1:1 printed pattern and the grey stone on the top is the reproduction in progress.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

An Aha Moment with the Pre-Dorset Awl

Now an awl, but once a foreshaft?

Earlier this week I was working on the reproduction of the Pre-Dorset awl from the Lagoon Site for the Ikaahuk Archaeology Project and realized that it might not have always been an awl.  I think it may have started out it's life as a foreshaft that later had one end reworked into an awl point.

I feel like I've finally bonded with this collection

I was having a problem with the antler reproduction that I'm making (it started to bend) and I got to thinking "If this awl can't be salvaged, then what is the quickest way to make a new one and get it to this stage again?"  Thinking about my workshop and the tools that I have on hand, it occurred to me that a Pre-Dorset foreshaft would be the ideal blank.  It even has one flattened end, just like the original artifact.  Exactly like the original artifact, in fact. What if the person who made the original artifact had the same idea?  What if they grabbed an old foreshaft and turned it into an awl?  One way to check would be to try to refit the awl/foreshaft with a harpoon head from the same site.
 

The flattened end of the awl is a perfect fit in to the open socket of the Pre-Dorset harpoon head or lance head found at the same site.

Too precise of a fit to be a coincidence.  These two
artifacts seem to have been carved to fit each other.

Fortunately, there is a harpoon head (or lance head) in the collection from the same site (The Lagoon Site) and same culture (Pre-Dorset) so I could see how the awl head would fit into a contemporary socket.   I couldn't wait to get into the archaeology lab at The Rooms today to see if the two artifacts would fit together.  As you can see in the pictures, they fit perfectly. The fit is so exact that they almost snap together.  I'm confident now that the awl was once a foreshaft.  What's more, it is such a precise fit with the lance head in the collection that I think it is quite likely that they were once used together.

Now it is possible that the flattened end on the Ikaahuk awl was intentionally made to serve another purpose, like creasing leather, and that it's resemblance to a foreshaft is purely coincidental, but I don't think so. A combination awl and boot creaser would be a handy and efficient dual-purpose tool and I think the only way to make it better would be if you could make it in a few minutes using an old foreshaft that you had lying around the tent.  Re-purposing an old tool is easier than making the same thing entirely from scratch.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

The lure of Ikaahuk

Between it all, I look forward to the quiet moments when I can spend time working with the Ikaahuk artifacts. At this point I'm shaving off millimetres and working on the placement and size of the holes in the ivory lure.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

It's all still worth it.

The Happiest Little Ulu

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

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

Getting closer...

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

Knapping and hafting tools in the Great Hall with MUNArch

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Many small jobs

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

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Pre-Dorset Harpoon/Lance Head in Progress

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

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Pre-Dorset Awl

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

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Thule Harpoon Head

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

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Ikaahuk awl in progress

At this point, I'm shaving off millimetres from the Ikaahuk artifact reproductions to match the originals. I have a few other projects and contracts on the go and I'm also preparing to head somewhere warm for a few days, so Ikaahuk progress will come to a standstill until I'm able to return to the workshop a little later in March.   I'm going to set up a few pre-scheduled blog posts to keep the Monday, Wednesday, Friday publishing cycle going on while I'm away.  I suspect that a portion of the scheduled posts will be photos of the Ikaahuk artifacts and reproductions that I took today.   This is the awl handle.  I've been splashing the metal part of the offset awl with muriatic acid for the past few days so that it will rust to match the original. 

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

And then there are those days...

Yesterday, the quartzite scraper was finished, I just needed to compare it with the original Pre-Dorset artifact one last time before I declared it "done".  I was walking across the parking lot at The Rooms on the way to visit the Ikaahuk collection, when I dropped the box containing the reproductions. The scraper I was making snapped in two when it hit the asphalt.  Usually when I break stuff, its in the workshop as I'm building it.  This is just humiliating.  

Other pieces are slowly taking shape.  On this Thule harpoon head, I need to intentionally break off three of the four barbs in order to match the original.  Hopefully those breaks can happen with a little bit more control than the scraper break.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Did I mention the progress was slow?

I'm visiting the Ikaahuk artifacts in The Rooms every other day and using the days in between to make progress on the reproductions in the workshop.  On reproductions like this the first step is to build the replica and match it to the dimensions of the original artifact.  Then I antique the reproduction to match the look of the original.  In a couple cases I'm nearly ready to move on to the antiquing phase, like the offset awl above.  The handle still needs a bit of carving, but once I confirm that the awl is the right size by comparing it to the original artifact tomorrow, then I can begin rusting it with a muriatic acid wash.

The little bola ball made from antler was cut from a caribou antler beam and then further ground and polished down.  I'm in the process of doing the same with the reproduction on the left.  From talking to Charles Arnold, the archaeologist who found the artifacts shown here on Banks Island, the bolas would have been made several at a time by scoring and then snapping off segments of an antler.  Once the tough cortical exterior of the antler is cut or chopped through, then the spongey interior is relatively easy to snap off.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Slow Progress

The Pre-Dorset awl

We had a lot of snow in St. John's yesterday - somewhere around 45 cm - so everything is taking a little bit longer than normal to get done today.  I was able to make it out to my workshop yesterday and then in to The Rooms this afternoon to view the Ikaahuk artifacts again.  My day is still not quite over, so I'll just share a few photos from this afternoon's side-by-side comparisons.  The measurements that I took today will give me work to do in the workshop on Monday.  

Ivory lure

Antler bola weight

Selecting the Antler and Ivory for Ikaahuk

Finding the perfect pieces to carve

I took a box of antler, ivory, and the in-progress Ikaahuk artifact reproductions in to The Rooms this afternoon to compare side-by-side with the originals.  Most pieces are on track.  After getting more familiar with the artifacts, I decided to restart the Thule harpoon head with a fresh piece of antler.  I'd started it with a solid piece of antler, but upon review, that's not the most appropriate option.  Both the Thule harpoon head and the Pre-Dorset harpoon head (or lance head) were made on split caribou antler beams.  The hard, outer cortical layers of the antler formed the dorsal surface of both artifacts, while the porous inner trabecular layer was used to carve out the open sockets and other details on the ventral surface.  

Some reproductions, like this awl, are on track and the visit gave me a chance to plan out the next sequence of cuts to get it closer to the final shape.

All of these artifacts were found on Banks Island, NWT on archaeology projects led by Charles Arnold (Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary and former director of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre).  I called this artifact a harpoon head in a previous blog post, but Dr. Arnold suggested that it may actually be a lance, because it lacks a line hole even though it appears to be complete.  That seems plausible to me.  In this photo, the artifact is lying on a caribou antler beam that I'll work into the reproduction.  I selected this piece of antler because it gives me a good layer of hard antler to carve to match the contours of the original artifact and a tight core of porous antler that will match the ventral surface of the lance.

Here you can see the porous underside of the Pre-Dorset lance/harpoon head.  Aside from some smoothing and the incised decoration on the dorsal surface, I don't think there was a lot of work done to that side.  The belly was cut and ground flat and then sockets for the endblade and foreshaft were carved out of the spongey interior of the antler.  If you work the antler while it is wet, these sockets would be relatively easy to carve out with stone tools.

The same strategy was employed by the Thule people to make this harpoon head a couple thousand years later.  The dorsal surface of the harpoon head follows the contours of the outer cortical layer of antler and the porous interior was used to carve out a similar open socket.  The barbs are placed entirely within the cortical antler for strength.

A side view, again, the upper surface of the reproduction will follow the natural contours of the antler, which will be split in the middle so that the porous interior forms the belly.  

I didn't recognize the importance of the porous underside of this artifact during my first visit, but I believe the split antler is a crucial part of how this artifact is made.  I should mention that whalebone looks and works the same way.  I'm using antler because I can get a good match with the original artifacts, but it is possible that these artifacts are made from whalebone.  A beluga rib would give the right combination of hard and porous bone and would look virtually identical to antler.  The holes in whalebone can be larger and more open, but I work with both materials routinely and have a very difficult time telling them apart.

So far, so good on the broken slate ulu.  I have most of the flaked surface matching the original artifact (lower left) and will now add the ground ulu edge.

The fishing lure has a large crack in one surface. I want to suggest that crack in the reproduction without actually recreating it, so I found a small walrus tusk that has a very similar stain.  It's possible that the crack in the original artifact began as an identical streak in the tusk or tooth that it was carved from.  These streaks are common in walrus tusks, especially near the tip.  They don't usually extend very deep into the ivory so if I want to maintain the dark streak in the reproduction I'll have to do most of the carving from the other side.  

Photo Credits: Tim Rast