New Adze Blade Reproduction

Reproduction adze: the bit is on the right end in the photo

Fresh from the workshop - a new ground slate adze head reproduction.  This is a five inch chipped, pecked, ground, and polished piece destined for a university teaching collection.  I've been working on this set for a while - hopefully I can get the rest of the pieces finished up and sent off next week.  The style of this adze is based on Maritime Archaic artifacts from Newfoundland and Labrador.  It's generally rectangular in cross section, with a slight taper towards the end opposite the cutting bit, so that it would be wedged more tightly into the adze handle and lashings as it it used.

I used a local reddish purple slate for the adze.  I like to find a piece of stone that is already close to the dimensions of the desired end product, so that I have a minimal amount of trimming to do with the hammerstone as I rough out the blank.  Although, I do like having a few big flake scars visible on the finished tool, so that you can see the processes involved in manufacturing these tools.  Those chips help make it look more like the original artifacts as well.  After chipping the rough blank,  I'll start pecking the blank with a hammerstone as early as possible to get rid of rough edges and start smoothing the freshly fractured stone.  If the piece isn't solid, I want to know that early in the process.  Usually if something like this is going to break, it happens when you are hitting it with another rock. during the early chipping and pecking stages. 

As the adze blade starts to take shape there is less chipping and pecking done, and more grinding and polishing.  Most of the effort goes into shaping the polished bit.  On an adze, you want a beveled edge close to one face, rather than having the edge lined up symmetrically down the middle, like an axe head.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Intermediate Period Quartzite Biface - Spear or Adze?

Identical quartzite bifaces are hafted
in each of these tools - one as an
adze and one as a spear.

This was a fun reproduction, or pair of reproductions to make.  It shows two alternative interpretations of a red quartzite biface from the 3000 year old archaeological site in Sheshatshiu, Labrador. In one version the tool is hafted as a spear point and in the other it's hafted as an adze.  I love that the exhibit designers for the Labrador Interpretation Centre opted to show both concepts.  Often when I'm commissioned to work on a set of reproductions there are artifacts in the set that could be interpreted in a number of different ways.  Is it a knife or a harpoon endblade?  A dart point or an arrowhead?  I usually prepare a quote for the client based on each of the interpretations and then they pick the one option that fits their storyline or budget the best.  In this case, the designers came to me with two competing interpretations and rather than lock the exhibit into one of the options, they elected to show both ideas.

For a bit of context, you can see the original artifact in this video clip. What do you see?

The two reproductions in their
hafts flanking a photo reference
of the original artifact.

I don't want to prejudice either option by saying which version I prefer, but I will say that after making both of them, I think they are both plausible interpretations.  As I assembled them there were pros and cons to each design, but I didn't encounter any issues or technical reasons why one version would be impossible.  There are analogs in the archaeological record for both chipped stone adzes and wide stemmed spear points. At the same time, one is probably wrong and one is probably right, but I don't really know which is which.  Its kind of a Schrodinger's reproduction - simultaneously correct and incorrect at the same time.

Radically different tools and interpretations stemming from the same artifact.

Adzes are wood working tools, kind of like
a chisel hafted onto a small axe handle.

In support of the interpretation of the tool as a spear point, it does appear to be thinned at the base, ground along the wide parallel sided stem but left sharp and serrated along the leaf shaped edges toward the tip, which also appears to have impact damage.   On the other hand, the projectile points found at the site are much smaller and side-notched rather than stemmed.  Ground stone woodworking tools are curiously missing from the assemblage, but the people living there 3000 years ago must have worked wood somehow.  The slight grinding around the base may also be a bit of usewear or it may have been intentionally ground to smooth and even out the edge, which is important in a chipped stone woodworking tool to remove unintentional platforms that could accidentally detach flakes during use.   After all, hard wood can be used as a billet to knock flakes off of knapped tools, so using a chipped stone blade as an woodworking tool would be risky business if you weren't careful with the angles and platforms that you leave exposed on the working edge.

The antler socket is a shock
absorber and creates a larger
hafting area to lash the stone
blade to the handle.

Originally I thought that I would tie the biface directly to the wood adze handle, but as I started to assemble it I decided that a caribou antler socket lashed to the handle with rawhide would be a much more practical solution.  Perhaps the pointed end of the quartzite biface is actually there to help wedge the tool more tightly into the socket and the impact damage is really from contact with the inside of the socket.  I have seen comparable chips happen in handles when retooling things like projectile points and drills. The socket needed to be quite deep to fit the profile of the tool and I used a bit of hide glue to lock it in, although I could have done the same with pitch.  I think I elected for hide glue so that the join between the blade and the antler socket would be more visible.   I only made one version of this tool and it needs to survive to deliver to the client so I'm not going to be able to use it to determine whether it could actually function as a adze, but from what I've seen it is certainly sharp and I think it's a reasonable interpretation.

Hafted as a spear, the quartzite biface creates a much more
robust lance than the small side notched projectile points
recovered from the site.

Hafting the biface as a spear point was fairly straightforward.  I used pitch made from spruce gum, red ochre, and charcoal for the glue with gut for the lashing.  I scaled up the dimensions of the foreshaft to match the scale of the biface, but the foreshaft is still designed to fit the same five foot long mainshaft as the side-notched point and knife mentioned in previous posts.  Its a different scale than the other points and so it would probably have been used in a different way; perhaps on different game or as a stabbing lance as opposed to a thrown or launched projectile. Like the adze, I'm sure this would be a perfectly serviceable spear or lance.

What do you think?  Is one of the interpretations more or less likely?  Is there a third (or fourth) option that we didn't consider?  Leave a comment - I'd love to hear your thoughts.

An adze?

A spear?

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Maritime Archaic Flute and Adze

Hafted and unhafted adzes, flute, etc.

I'm packing up and shipping the Maritime Archaic Indian, Groswater Palaeoeskimo, and Recent Indian reproductions bound for Red Bay and Newfoundland's west coast later today.  We had nice sunny weather yesterday so I photographed the finished pieces in the backyard.  In this post, I'll talk a bit about the bird bone flute and the adzes in the set.

Goose humerus flute

For the flute, I used a goose humerus, because it was the biggest bird bone that I had on hand.  The Maritime Archaic Indians made a variety of flutes and whistles from the hollow bones of large birds including geese, gannets, swans, and eagles.  Ulnas seem to have been prefered, but other bones show up as well.  Most of the flutes and whistles that I'm aware of were found in the burials at Port au Choix.  I'm no musician, but I've talked to some people who are passionate about flutes and whistles - so hopefully they'll correct me if I get something wrong here.

blow across the top

This reproduction is a flute, meaning you blow across the opening to produce a sound.  A whistle is an instrument that you blow into the end to make noise.  The Maritime Archaic Indians made both.  In the case of a whistle, a slanted notch or hole is made somewhere midway down the shaft of the bone.  For a flute, you need to cut a small slanted notch in the end that you blow across.  You play it by blowing across the top, similar to how you make a noise blowing across a bottle mouth.  That little notch is important - it splits the air and creates the sound of the flute.  I wasn't aware of the mechanics of flutes the first time I made a Maritime Archaic bird bone flute and I though that little half hole was a crack in the bone where it broke through a finger hole.  That's not correct - it was intentionally made.  If you look carefully at the intact flutes from the province, you'll see a little notch on the end of every one.  If its missing that notch, look at the holes along the body of the instrument - one will probably have a slant edge to it, indicating that it was a whistle.

The end notch is important

I'm not a musician.  At all.  I was in a marching band in elementary school and they kicked me off the bugle and put me on baritone bugle because it had fewer parts in most songs and my errors were less shrill.  Then they took me off the baritone bugle and made me a flag bearer.  Still, if I blow on this flute and get the angles right I can get it to make a sound, especially if I keep my finger over the top hole and keep the bottom hole open.  The impression that I get is that smaller bones makes a more shrill noise, whereas those big wing bones from the bigger birds would create a lower, more pleasant sound.  I know that the baritone bugle was bigger than the regular bugle and it made a lower noise, so I'm guessing the same principle is at work here.

Adzes were woodworking tools

For the adze, I used a silicified slate or argillite for the bit, hardwood for the handle, sealskin for the lashing and ochre and oil, water, and egg for the pigment.  The complete adze will be there for the kids to pass around and handle, while the unhafted blade will be used in the mock dig.  For these sorts of stone tools, I like to leave traces of all the stages of manufacture in place.  Some axes, adzes, or gouges that we find in the province are perfectly finished and polished, but most have a nicely finished (and perhaps use damaged) bit end, but the rest of the body of the adze is more roughly shaped and usually show traces of chipping and pecking.  We don't find the wood handle or lashing, so that's a bit of guesswork based on other adzes from around the world.

The working bit on an Maritime Archaic Adze is usually the most heavily worked and finely finished part of the tool.  The rest of the stone would have been buried under lashings and wasn't as finely finished or polished.

Bit sits on a shelf, but doesn't butt against the back

The proximal ends of adzes are often irregular and I've sometimes wondered why they aren't more carefully finished.  It seems like they could be carefully shaped to butt up against the handle and create a more secure bond.  Robin Wood has been part of a team building a reconstruction of a Bronze Age boat and he made many of the woodworking tools used in the effort.  He noted in his bronze adzes that if the back of the bit made contact with the wood handle it would bounce loose during use. In Newfoundland, the Palaeoeskimos used antler sockets for their stone adzes to act as shock absorbers to prevent this problem, but I think that the Maritime Archaic probably just made sure that the back of their adze blades didn't make contact with the wood handle.  I've started leaving a gap between the distal end of adze blades and the wood handle in my Maritime Archaic reproductions now.

I have a lot of sealskin thong on hand, so I use it on reproductions like this.  Different sorts of leather or rawhide lacing could have been used as well as cordage made from plants or roots.  We don't get wood or leather preservation in Maritime Archaic sites in Newfoundland and Labrador, so we details of the handle and lashing are based on analogies with other adze using cultures.

A forked branch is used to make the handle.  I try not to get stuck in a rut when I make reproductions like this.  Since I 'm speculating on the style of handle, I like to change things up - maybe someday I'll accidentally make one that is correct.  For this particular adze, I left a longer knob opposite the bit end and covered the whole thing in red ochre.  I'm happy with it.  I think if I sent it back in a time machine and someone in a Maritime Archaic camp tripped over it they'd wonder who left that there and not "what the heck is that thing?"

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

L'Anse aux Meadows Adze

Completed adze, scraper, and knife

The L'Anse aux Meadows reproductions are finished now and I'm just waiting for the sealskin binding on the adze to dry before sending it all off.  The original adze head that the reproduction is based on is being driven to L'Anse aux Meadows at the moment so I darted in yesterday morning for one last side-by-side comparison before it was packed up and escorted away.

Adze reproduction and artifact

Palaeoeskimo Adze:  An adze is a wood working tool with its head mounted at right angles to the handle, looking kind of like a hoe instead of an axe.  None of the organic components of the artifact were preserved, I just had the ground stone bit to start from.  An axe will be symmetrical, with the blade aligned in the middle of the head, while an adze will usually be sharpened so that the bit is closer to one face or the other.  This one was made on a large flake of tough (perhaps silicified) slate.  Most of the dorsal surface of the adze head was completely ground and polished, so the only remnant of the original flake is on the ventral surface.  The most distinctive feature of the adze head is the isolated stem opposite the bit end.  That provides an important clue for how it would have been hafted.

Note the stem on the artifact

The Maritime Archaic adzes that we find tend to be relatively long and narrow, without a contracting stem.  At Palaeoeskimo sites (especially Groswater Palaeoeskimo sites) in the province, we find shorter, wider adzes with a contracting stem designed to fit into an antler socket.  The L'Anse aux Meadows adze is the largest adze of this kind that I've seen, so its tempting to associate it with the Maritime Archaic culture, because they were known for their large ground stone tools.  However, every feature of its construction - especially the stem, suggest a Palaeoeskimo and probably Groswater Palaeoeskimo origin.  I think its the biggest Groswater Palaeoeskimo adze in the world.

Giant Palaeoeskimo adze, small Maritime Archaic Adze

I'm not aware of any antler sockets from Groswater sites, but caribou antler adze sockets are a common artifact in Palaeoeskimo sites across the North, including Dorset sites in Newfoundland.  I think they are pretty clever.  The antler acts as a shock absorber that probably helps extend the life of the tool and I'd guess it might help with hand shock on the user, but I couldn't say for sure.  It also allows smaller bits of stone to be used.  In the earlier, one-piece Maritime Archaic Adzes half of the adze head is used for cutting and the other half of the adze head is used for hafting.  The antler socket divides that job up so that the stone adze bit can focus on cutting and the antler takes care of the hafting.  Using the socketed design, you can do the same job but with a stone half the size.

The antler socket will be lashed to the handle

I didn't have a piece of antler that fit the adze without bending, so I had to soak the antler in vinegar for a couple of days and slowly wedge it open wide enough to accept the adze head.  This created a very secure fit.  Its important that the adze is firmly mounted in the spongy antler in the middle of the antler, you don't want to cut through the dense antler around the edges or the antler will crack in use.  The natural flare of the antler is used to create the V-shaped socket.  The narrow end of the adze sockets are modified for hafting and the artifacts from Port au Choix that I used as references for this reproduction tend to have flat blunt ends, so I think they were designed to butt up against a wood shelf in the handle.

Tamarack handle, caribou antler socket, slate adze

The handle is tamarack and I did a lot of research trying to find Palaeoeskimo adze handles for references, but they are pretty scarce.  I based this one on an artifact from a Baffin Island Dorset Site.  The biggest difference between this reproduction and the artifact was that the artifact adze handle was a simple "L" shape, without the raised back at the top for the butt of the antler socket to rest against.  I'm not done thinking about adzes - if anyone knows of any other Palaeoeskimo adze handles, I'd love to hear from you.

Comparing the bit edge

The handle is made from a fork in a tree branch, which is trick used by adze makers around the world to create a strong "L" shaped bend in their handles.  The wood shelf that the antler is tied to is just a mirror image of the hafting area of the socket.  I'm satisfied that it looks like a Palaeoeskimo haft.  The binding is the sealskin from the hooded seal that we prepared this spring.  I'm very happy with how it turned out.  That black air-dried look is exactly what I wanted on my reproductions.  I'll talk more about working with the sealskin in a future post, but so far all of the lashing that I've used have come from cutting the shaved sealskin in half down the middle.  Which means that the 335 feet of skin could yield 670 feet of useable lashing.

On Friday, I'll show you the finished Groswater Palaeoeskimo harpoon.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Adze and Harpoon Build Photos

The L'Anse aux Meadows Groswater Palaeoeskimo harpoon reproductions are almost ready to lash together.  I'll use sinew and hide glue to tie the endblades onto the harpoon head and to wrap through the groove around the open socket.

I used tamarack scraps for the wedge shaped piece that forms the other half of the open scarfed and grooved socket on the harpoon.  I'll use the hooded sealskin for the lashing to hold it in place.

The harpoon heads are antler and the endblades are chert.  The open sockets are cut into the base of the harpoon head through their ventral face.  The harpoon head on the left is shown dorsal side up and the one on the right is ventral side up.

These little wedges of wood weren't found with the artifact at L'Anse aux Meadows, but they would have been necessary to mount the foreshaft solidly.  There's no rule that they had to be made out of wood.  Priscilla Renouf and her crew at Port au Choix have found little bone or antler artifacts in Groswater contexts that appear similar to these pieces, at least in photographs.  When everyone gets back from the field at the end of the summer, I'd like to take a peak at those artifacts in person.

Tracing the adze in the lab.

Finished reproduction adze head.  I might keep sanding it to a higher polish, but the shaping is all done.

The adze head is designed to fit into an antler socket.  A section of caribou antler would have been used where it begins to flare out.  The artifact is sitting on the antler in a good spot to cut the socket.

This is the reproduction in the antler socket that I cut from the antler in the above photo.  Unfortunately, I cut this socket a little short and tried to work it while it was too dry.  The adze cracked the socket while I was wedging it in place.

I had to start over with a new piece of antler.  I'm soaking this one in vinegar before trying to wedge to adze head in place.  Hopefully it will be soft enough that it will mould itself around the adze head.  I did this on an adze socket last summer and it work well and when it dried it held its new shape.

The antler adze socket will then be lashed onto a wood handle.  I'm hoping that this forked piece of tamarack will do the trick.

Photo Credits:
1-4,6-10: Tim Rast
5: Lori White