Maritime Archaic Reproductions for Port au Choix

Bird headed pins made from caribou long bones
and needles made from bird bones and caribou ribs.

This is a set of reproductions that I recently completed for Port au Choix National Historic Site on Newfoundland's northern peninsula.  The set includes a hafted ground stone axe, slate lance, barbed harpoon, bird headed pins and bone needles.  Some of these are newly made and others are pieces that I've had in stock and that I've shown on this blog before.

The pins and needles have been slightly antiqued to take off the fresh white bone sheen.

 

Some of the needles have flat cross-sections and are made from bird bones and others have round cross-sections and are made from caribou ribs.  All of them have gouged eyes and they range in length from 5-11 cm.

Often when I make these pins, they are intended to be used as hair pins with sealskin barrettes.  However, the ones in this photo are intended to be used in display and public programming, so I was able to show more of the variety in the actual pins and pendants and not just the long pointy pin versions.  Many of the bird headed bone carvings at Port au Choix adorned shorter pendants, with gouged holes in the shaft opposite the bird head.  Presumably these were used as pendants or hung from clothing.

 

The larger, hafted pieces in this set include a ground slate (or argillite) axe hafted into a wooden handle. The axe head is secured with pitch in the hole in the wood which was burned out with hot coals.  The rawhide lashing is there to reinforce the handle and prevent it from splitting in use.  The harpoon in the middle has a barbed antler harpoon head with a whalebone foreshaft and spruce main shaft.  The slate lance is hafted to a wood shaft with spruce pitch glue and gut lashing.

Ground slate lance head.  The lancehead is about 22 cm long, which is on the large end of the spectrum for Port au Choix.

The harpoon is covered in red ochre. The Maritime Archaic certainly covered their bodies and tools with red ochre as part of their burial ceremony, but it is unclear if they used ochre as frequently in day-to-day life as the later (and unrelated) Beothuk.

This style of harpoon head is not designed to toggle, although the Maritime Archaic did also make toggling harpoon heads.  The barbs would have secured the harpoon head and line to the prey animal - most likely seals.

The harpoon line is braided sealskin.  The harpoon is about 72" fully assembled and the lance is about 92".  I don't know how long the main shafts of the Maritime Archaic versions of these tools would have been.  Generally the tool components are larger than the later Dorset and Groswater Pre-Inuit who lived in Newfoundland, so I tend to make the overall reproductions larger and longer as well.

 

The lance is fixed to the wood shaft.  I envision these long straight sided lances as close range piercing tools, especially for penetrating the thick blubber layers of marine mammals.  A fixed lance head could be stabbed and pulled out repeatedly.  The harpoon head, on the other hand, is designed to detach and stay in the animal with a line attached.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Port au Choix Workshop and Deliveries

Dorset seal processing tools from Port au Choix

Preparation for this weekend's workshop in Port au Choix is well under way.  I have a radio interview this morning and I'll be packing the car today with all of the rock and materials that we'll need for the two day course.  The gift shop in Port au Choix has been stocking my artifact reproductions and jewellery for more than 15 years and I have a small top up order of earrings to delivery for the upcoming season.  Parks Canada also ordered a few new reproductions to illustrate Dorset Palaeoeskimo seal processing at the site.

Side hafted microblade, bevelled edged tabular slate scraper, chert knife, and endscraper, 

This was my first time making a hafted tabular slate scraper like this.  Over the years an assortment of slate tools have been recovered from Dorset Palaeoeskimo contexts at Port au Choix.  Rebecca Knapp studied these tools for her MA thesis at MUN:
An analysis of tabular slate tools from Phillip's Garden (EeBi-1), a Dorset Palaeoeskimo site in Northwestern Newfoundland.  

This particular class of slate tools, tends to have a straight unifacially beveled distal end.  The sides may be square or slightly taper and are often bifacially bevelled, with an additional third abrading pass to blunt the bifacial lateral bevels.  The bases have long, narrow, tapering stems.  

To the best of my knowledge there haven't been any handles found associated with this style of slate scraper. I chose to haft it similar to a large endscraper, perhaps the larger size of the slate scrapers indicate that they were used in a two handed fashion.  It's also possible that they would have been hafted to a more complex handle at a 90 degree angle, like an adze.  This is possible, but I think that the relatively weak stem would function better inline with the handle and direction of force, like this reproduction.

Chert knife in an antler handle, with twisted sinew lashing.

 

Chert microblade, side-hafted into a wood handle with a whalebone brace tied in place with twisted sinew.

Chert endscraper in a wood handle with twisted sinew lashing.

Lately, I've been using more twisted sinew for Dorset reproductions because that is how most preserved sinew in Dorset contexts has been found.  If the reproductions are display pieces or if they are for my own collection, then I keep the sinew dry.  It is possible to wrap and tie off the dry sinew very snuggly without the use of any adhesives.  In this case I've added a layer of hide glue.  The glue isn't necessary to keep the tools together, but it will protect the sinew and make them more durable in a hands on setting.

 

A few pairs of glass an stone earrings for the Heritage Shop in Port au Choix.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Flintknapping Workshop, May 27 & 28, Port au Choix, NL

Please join me at Port au Choix National Historic site for a two day Flintknapping Workshop on May 27 and 28th.  Parks Canada is sponsoring this event and it is FREE to anyone over the age of 16, with all materials and lunch provided.  On Saturday, you will learn the basics of flintknapping and on Sunday you will be hafting your stone tools into wooden hafts using traditional techniques and materials.

Space is limited and interest is high, so prior registration is mandatory.  Please contact Loretta Decker to register: loretta.decker@pc.gc.ca or call 709-623-2797

Elfshot Jewellery

Earrings sent to
Port au Choix

This spring, the largest selections of Elfshot jewellery can be found in the gift shop at The Rooms and in the Heritage Shop at Port au Choix.  I've completed orders for both retail locations within the past few weeks and here are some images of the necklaces and earrings that each shop recieved to top up their existing inventory.  In the most recent orders, The Rooms focused on reproductions of Newfoundland and Labrador artifacts made from local chert while the Heritage Shop expanded their glass, obsidian and fibre optic glass inventories.

Groswater Palaeoeskimo earrings for The Rooms gift shop

These fibre optic glass necklaces are on their way to Port au Choix

Recycled glass and obsidian earrings for Port au Choix

 

... and a few Maritime Archaic lances (Port au Choix)

 

The best selection of chert jewellery by Elfshot can now be found in The Rooms gift shop, here in St. John's

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

On to the next thing...

Four of these slate ulu
reproductions are heading
to Port au Choix

I finally have the order for Port au Choix out the door and I can move on to the next project.  Before I leave for the field in two weeks, I need to wrap up two orders that I've already started and try to finish a third that I have yet to begin.  Here is one last look at some of the reproductions and original jewellery that will be available this summer at the Heritage Shop in Port au Choix.

The ground slate bayonet in the middle of the photo and three of the lances are also on their way to the Northern Peninsula.

Fibre Optic Cufflinks.  

These four obsidian flake necklaces are the most recent addition to the "Lost Stone Series".

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Port au Choix Dorset Palaeoeskimo Reproductions

Artifact reproductions of
Middle Dorset Palaeoeskimo
cutting, scraping, and carving tools

The set of Dorset Palaeoeskimo hafted stone tools is ready to send to it's new home at Port au Choix National Historic Site.  These pieces were commissioned by Parks Canada to use in hands on interpretation.  They are made from the same wood, chert, antler, ivory, bone, and sinew available to the Dorset culture 1500 years ago.  The nephrite that I used in the burin-like tools is similar to what has been found here, but I used stone quarried in B.C.  Likewise, the reddish microblades are made from an exotic jasper.  The red and green stones give the set a bit of a holiday feel.

From left to right; A side-hafted chert microblade with sinew lashing and a wood handle and brace piece, a hafted chert endscraper with sinew lashing and wood handle, a chert knife with sinew lashing and antler handle, and a hafted nephrite burin-like tool with sinew lashing on a wood handle with a bone brace.

There are a couple extra pieces in the set shown here, but most of this will be in the mail to Port au Choix shortly.

Multiple views of the hafted endscrapers.  These are unifacial tools and they were hafted in unifacial handles.

Multiple views of side-hafted microblades.  These are extremely sharp slicing tools for use on soft organic materials.  Along with some friends, I once cut more than 330 feet of seal skin into rope using a knife like this and it is still sharp today. 

Hafted burin-like tools.  Archaeologically the brace pieces from BLT handles and the brace pieces from microblade handles look very similar, but they had slightly different functions.  Here, the back of the brace is important in supporting the back of the nephrite bit and the brace fits inside the handle to made the handle width adjustable.  I used sinew lashing to tie down the thin end of the brace, but the original artifact that I based this reproduction on used a hole and a small wood peg instead.  Another difference is that the wood handle opposite the brace is an open slot on my reproduction, but on the original artifact this is closed off below the notch of the tool.  I didn't realize that when I made the reproduction, but the notch and base of the Port au Choix BLTs are also a slightly different style than the reference artifact that I used.  I'm ok with the open slot in this instance.

Dorset knives with carved antler handles, based on artifacts found at Port au Choix.  A couple of these handles have been found and I believe that they represent a stylized polar bear.

A close-up view of the lashing on one of the scrapers.  The lashing is twisted sinew thread approximately 1 mm thick.  Sometimes it is a single thread that has been twisted and other times I twisted multiple strands together to make a longer cord. 

The twisted sinew lashing on one of the burin-like tools.  I coated the thread with hide glue and reinforced the contact surfaces between the stone tools and their handles with the same.  The hide glue hardens and protects the sinew, without changing the look of the tool. 

A sample knife, endscraper, microblade, and burin-like tool with a scale.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Ready to Assemble

Lots of fiddly little pieces to
keep straight

I need to twist some sinew into threads and then lash the stone, wood, bone, and antler pieces together to finish the Dorset Palaeoeskimo set of reconstructed tools for Port au Choix.  Since these will be used in demos, I'll probably use a bit of natural hide glue to firm up the bonds, but everything is fitting so firmly that I think that's optional.   I'm hoping that final stage of assembly will get done tomorrow and I can ship the order by mid-week.  Maybe it should have been done by now, but we had the perfect amount of snow late last week for a snowshoe trip to Bowring Park last Friday afternoon.   

Honestly - how could I stay in the workshop when this trail is a 5 minute drive away?

A couple knives and some endscrapers have been added to the set. 

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Experimenting with Dorset Palaeoeskimo Tools

Scraping the spurs on a harpoon head

I got some exciting news today - a project and paper that I was involved with was just published.  It's based on some experiments that I did with Patty Wells for her PhD research into organic tools from Dorset Palaeoeskimo contexts at Port au Choix.  The paper was published in the Canadian Journal of Archaeology and is called:

Dorset Culture Bone and Antler Tool Reproductions Using Replica Lithics: Report on the Identification of Some Possible Manufacture Traces on Osseous Tools from Phillip’s Garden, Newfoundland  – Patricia J. Wells, M. A. P. Renouf, and Tim Rast

The finished antler harpoon head

Ahead of the work, I made reproductions of a range of Dorset scrapers, burins, knives, and hafted microblades and then tried to experimentally reproduce four different organic tools using the kit.  I worked antler, bird bone, caribou bone, and whale bone.  Patty documented the work and compared the results to the archaeologically recovered artifacts.  In some cases the tool marks from the reproductions matched the originals and in other cases they differed, indicating that the Dorset craftspeople used different tools or techniques that the ones I chose.  Both instances were informative.

This is a whalebone tool.  Maybe a foreshaft, maybe something else.   After a very tedious, long time of working the bone, we finally tried soaking it in water and it started to carve like butter.

A bird bone needle

I think the bird bone needle was the first tool that I worked on in the set.  It was one of the simpler tools to get started on.

A barbed point made on caribou bone.  

  

A lot of people think its really hard to make tiny holes like those found on Dorset tools, but its actually not that hard.  The Dorset didn't use drills, so the holes have to be gouged out.  Before a hole gets big, it starts out as a tiny hole.  It's the big holes that take time to make.

 Photo Credits: Patricia Wells