Sheshatshiu, Labrador Intermediate Period Collection

A 3000 year old toolkit

Here's a final look at the Intermediate Period reproductions that I've been talking about for the past few weeks.  They are based on artifacts recovered in Sheshatshiu, Labrador under the direction of Scott Neilsen.  The site is dated to around 3000 years ago and will be the focus of a new exhibit in the Labrador Interpretation Centre in North West River.  Aside from the two cobble tools (the quartzite hammerstone and the coarse pestle) I've documented most of these pieces in previous posts, which are indexed here:

• Recording Artifacts to Reproduce Them
• March is going to be busy
• An Intermediate Period Scraper Reproduction from Labrador
• Intermediate Period Scraper and Beothuk Collection Update
• Intermediate Period Chert Knife Reproduction
• Intermediate Period Spear Reproduction
• Quartzite Biface
• Intermediate Period Quartzite Biface - Spear or Adze?

If you would like to learn more about the archaeological site that these reproductions are illustrating, you can visit the Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society's YouTube channel and watch Scott's April 2, 2014 talk at The Rooms called "Archaeology in Sheshatshiu: A Review". 

These are the artifacts that the reproductions are based on.  Only one of the three side-notched projectile points was reproduced (the top one) and the large reddish quartzite biface was used as the reference for both a spear point and adze blade.

For this quartzite hammerstone, I went through my bag of hammerstones and found one that had a similar size and shape to the Sheshatshiu artifact.   If you've attended a MUNArch flintknapping workshop in the past few years, there is a pretty good chance that you used this hammerstone and therefore you helped make this reproduction.

This is a little rougher looking cobble that is meant to represent a possible pestle in the collection.  Its a softer rock that probably wouldn't last long as a hammerstone, but it may have been used for grinding ochre or pulverizing other materials at the site.  Mostly unmodified rocks like this present their own problems when trying to reproduce them.  Finding a cobble that matches the artifact is kind of like finding a perfect match for a specific snowflake.

 

All of the pieces.  Quartzite, chert, charcoal, softwood, spruce, tamarack, rawhide, gut, sinew, hide glue, spruce gum, red ochre, caribou skin, beach cobble, caribou antler

The quartzite biface hafted as a spear point is one of my favourite pieces in the collection.  It has a nice weight to it.

 

Seeing this coming at you would suck, if you were a caribou.

The scraper, hafted in an Innu style handle.

A side-notched point hafted with red ochre and spruce gum into a wood foreshaft with sinew lashing.

A grey banded chert knife hafted in a caribou antler handle.  The handle is designed to fit into the spear as a short foreshaft.

The red quartzite biface is shown here hafted as an adze blade in an antler socket lashed to a wood handle with rawhide.

 

The Sheshatshiu Intermediate Period Set

 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

Intermediate Period Spear Reproduction

The hafted reproduction
alongside a 1:1 photo of the
original artifact

This is a hafted reproduction of an Intermediate Period spear or dart point based on an artifact found in an approximately 3000 year old archaeology site in Sheshatshiu, Labrador.  It is hafted in to a foreshaft with spruce gum and red ochre glue and sinew lashing.  The foreshaft is fit into a main shaft that is based on historic Innu caribou hunting spears.  The historic period spears had permanently fixed iron spear heads and were used for spearing caribou in close quarters, especially from canoes while the caribou were swimming.  

The foreshaft and socket

The recorded lengths of Innu spears range from 4 feet to well over 7 and a half feet long, although most of the references I've come across are in the 4 to 6 foot range.  For this reproduction I used a main shaft that is just over a five feet long and the total length of the spear is around six or six and a half feet, depending on which of the foreshafts is mounted in it.  Like the historic spears, the socket of the main shaft is reinforced with lashing to prevent splitting.  I used gut for this lashing and spruce for the mainshaft.  Other details borrowed from the historic Innu spears is the straight, non-tapering shaft with a consistent circular cross-section of a little over 2 cm.  There is also a small knob on the butt end of the spear, presumably this was there to assist in thrusting and retrieving the spear.

Spruce mainshaft, softwood foreshaft, gut and sinew lashing, red ochre and spruce gum binding. The mainshaft is 5 feet 1 inch long and when fitted with this foreshaft, the complete spear is 6 feet long. (click to enlarge)

The antler knife handle is tapered at
the end so it will also fit into the
spear mainshaft.

The interchangeable foreshafts will allow the interpreters to change the character of the spear by swapping out different foreshafts mounted with different point styles.  In total, there will be three different foreshafts, each mounted with a different biface or projectile point, including the knife that I mentioned in the last blog post.  The one limit will be the mainshaft itself.  Its a very good representation of a handheld thrusting spear, but it is not an aerodynamic design and doesn't easily lend itself to the interpretation of many of the notched bifaces as projectile points, perhaps fitted onto darts that were launched with a spear thrower.  Imagine a slighter shaft, with more of a barrel shape, lacking a knob on the butt end and perhaps outfitted with feathers to create drag and spin.  Again, that's one of the benefits of the detachable foreshaft technology.  The same foreshaft that could be fit onto this thrusting mainshaft could also be used on a light dart designed to be hurled at prey with a throwing stick or atlatl.

I had a choice of projectile points to use on this reproduction.  I went with the point with the tip damage over the more complete examples because I found a stone that was a very good match to the original artifact.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Intermediate Period Chert Knife Reproduction

A small knife like this was lost in
Labrador about 3000 years ago.

This is another reproduction in the Intermediate Period set based on artifacts found by Scott Neilsen's crew in Sheshatshiu, Labrador.  Like all the other pieces in this set, only the lithic component of the tool was preserved, so the organic handle and binding materials are educated guesses.  For this particular biface we went with red ochre and spruce gum glue and sinew for the lashing.  The red ochre is based on the abundance of ochre staining found in the site.  We also used antler for the handle to bring caribou into the story.  Caribou hunting would have been very important to the Intermediate Period people living in the area of North West River and Sheshatshiu 3000 years ago, so we want to reflect that in the artifact reproductions.

Intermediate Period Knife Reproduction.  Banded chert blade, red ochre and spruce gum glue, sinew lashing, antler handle

The banded chert
is not a bad match
for the original.

The design of the handle is quite simple, although we purposefully kept it long and narrow so that it could double as a foreshaft for a spear or dart.  Making the handle serve a dual purpose keeps the interpretation of the biface as a knife a little more flexible as well as demonstrating that tools could serve multiple purposes across their lifetime.  The same projectile point that was used to hunt a caribou, could be used as a small knife to butcher the animal.  I'm still working on the mainshaft that will fit this knife and a couple other hafted bifaces, so I might have to do a small bit of shaping on the end, but I think its finished enough now for you to get the idea.

This piece will be used in support of an exhibit on the archaeology at Sheshatshiu that is being developed for the Labrador Interpretation Centre.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Quartzite Biface

I had a bit of trouble getting my hands on red quartzite for a couple of important artifact reproductions in the Sheshatshiu Intermediate Period set, but my luck recently changed.  This is one of two copies of a particular biface (below) that I need to make and haft.

This photo shows the original artifact.  There are a couple different interpretations of what this tool might have been used for and I'm going to make two versions and haft them in two different ways to illustrate the different theories.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Intermediate Period Scraper and Beothuk Collection Update

The correct way to hold and
use this style of scraper.

After posting the photos of the Intermediate Period scraper reproduction on Wednesday, I've got some important feedback from folks in Labrador explaining the proper way to use the Innu style handle that I used to mount the stone endscraper.  I included a photo in that post showing two different ways to hold the scraper and they were both incorrect.  The scraper should be held vertically, with your hand holding the stem and the heavy bulb at the top to add weight to the downward scraping action.  Scott Neilsen sent me a link to a fantastic video clip showing this style of scraper in use: you can view it here, Skimming the Fat and Removing the Hair.

I carved a bit more of the bulb to
create a longer stem for holding the
scraper.

As I mentioned previously, all that was preserved at the 3000 year old archaeological site in Sheshatshiu were small end scrapers made on flakes.  The handle is an historic Innu design.  Until an Intermediate Period site with organic preservation is found, we don't know for sure what kind of handles were in use 3000 years ago.  However, if we are going to use the analogy of an historic Innu style handle for the reproduction, then I should at least show the correct way to use it.  There were several ethnographic examples that I used as inspiration for the handle.  This one on the Tipatshimuna website was my primary source for the overall shape and construction and I used the measurements for several pieces in the collection of the Canadian Museum of History to guide the handle's size, like this one and this one.  The examples in the CMH online collection range in length from 21 to 29 cm long.  The handle that I made is meant to fit a relatively small stone scraper, so I went with a 23 cm long handle which places it in the smaller range of the ethnographic examples.  My hands are a little big for this particular handle, but I carved it to fit Lori's hand.

Beothuk harpoon head, scraper, and knife lying on a
caribou skin harpoon line.  Everything is there, except for
the ochre.

In other news, I'm wrapping up a large order of Beothuk reproductions this weekend and have several other pieces in the Sheshatshiu Intermediate period collection to complete.  Its going to be a busy few days.  The Beothuk set includes a bow and arrow, harpoon, knife, scraper, and flintknapping kit.  I can draw on existing inventory for a couple of those pieces, like the bow and arrow, but the rest needed to be built from scratch.  Everything is done now except for staining them with red ochre, which is a very important step.  Hopefully on Monday I'll have some photos of the fully assembled and ochre stained Beothuk harpoon.  At 12 feet long, its one of the larger reproductions I've ever done.  Its drying on the floor downstairs, where it starts in the living room and ends in the dining room.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

An Intermediate Period Scraper Reproduction from Labrador

The finished scraper

This is an Intermediate Period scraper reproduction based on an approximately 3000 year old artifact found in Sheshatshiu, Labrador.  The stone artifact will be on display in the Labrador Interpretation Centre and this reproduction will assist in interpreting the small pinkish tan colour scraper, which I mentioned in an earlier post.  The scraper is a relatively innocuous little flake scraper that on its own is not particularly diagnostic.  Most precontact cultures in Newfoundland and Labrador made versions of these small triangular or rectangular end scrapers.  The unique handle tells a different story.

Tools like this would be used to finish cleaning and
scraping a hide. (EDIT: I'm holding the tool wrong in these
photos.  I should be holding the narrow stem.  I'll show the
correct way to hold it in a future blog post.)

The handle is based on ethnographic and historic Innu scrapers.  It will be a familiar form to people in Sheshatshiu, especially older members of the community.  The historic scrapers were fit with a metal or sometimes bone scraper blade, but the reproduction of the small chipped stone endscraper from the archaeological site is a good fit.  Choosing to use an historic Innu style handle on the 3000 year old artifact definitely implies a continuity between the people who live in Sheshatshiu today and the people who lived there 30 centuries ago.  There aren't any scraper handles preserved from this remote time period, so we don't know exactly what Intermediate period handles looked like.  Often when I don't know what the missing organic pieces look like, I'll choose a design that is as simple as possible and fades into the background.  In this case, the handle is front and centre and so is the message of continuity that it conveys.

The small scraper was made unifacially on a flake.  The reproduction is shown hafted onto the wooden handle using spruce gum and red ochre as a glue and gut as a lashing.

The ventral surface of the scraper is a flat, unmodified ventral surface of a flake

Approx. 23 cm long

Red ochre was found within the site, so at the request Scott Neilsen, the archaeologist directing the project, I went with a spruce gum and ochre glue for the scraper.  I used gut lashing to reinforce the bond.  The ethnographic examples tended to use a leather lashing around the bit, but given the smaller hafting area on the archaeological scraper I went with something a little finer, less stretchy and more durable.  The handle is cut from a short fir or spruce log with a diameter of approximately 2 or 2 1/2 inches.  You can see where the bark was removed around the fattest part of the handle.  The small knob on the end opposite the scraper is there to secure a leather loop.  I used caribou skin for this loop on the reproduction.

Intermediate Period Scraper Reproduction: Chert scraper, spruce gum and ochre glue, gut lashing, softwood handle, caribou leather cord

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

March is going to be busy

An Open Minds workshop at The Rooms

It's kind of a hectic month.  I still have a couple big orders to fill in the studio, but workshops and demonstrations have really piled up in my March schedule as well.  At the moment,  I have 14 workshops, one knapping demonstration and a public talk scheduled across three different provinces during the month of March.  Some of those workshops are with elementary school kids while others are with university students and members of archaeological societies in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Securing the gut hafting on an ulu
at a MUNArch workshop.

Tonight is the second MUNArch ground stone ulu workshop.  We had 10 people come out on Monday night and everyone finished a slate ulu.  This is basically the same workshop that I do with the Open Mind's students at The Rooms, but we use sinew and gut lashing instead of string and people are responsible for chipping their own blanks and cutting their own handles.  For kids, we start with sawed blanks and handles that are already cut to length.

A Little Passage
(pre-contact Beothuk) knife,
ready to glue and lash together.

In the studio I'm continuing to work on Beothuk and Intermediate period reproductions.  The Intermediate period pieces must match a specific suite of artifacts from Sheshatshiu, Labrador, while the Beothuk pieces can be a little more generic.  I'm pulling from a lot of different archaeological and historical references for the Beothuk pieces.  For example the knife on the right is based on a biface found by Ralph Pastore on Inspector Island but the handle comes from a wood handle that was photographed by James Howley for his 1915 publication, The Beothuck or Red Indians.  For the Intermediate period pieces from Sheshatshiu, I'm using ethnographic Innu artifacts to help fill in some of the blanks.

The scraper in the upper left hand corner is meant to be a reproduction of the scraper in the photo immediately below it.

The original artifacts will be shown in the display as they were found and the reproductions will illustrate how they may have appeared to the people who originally made them, complete with lashings and handles and all the missing pieces that were not preserved in the ground.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast