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Photo Credit: Eric Walsh

Maybe the Maritime Archaic Hafted Stemmed Points like this...

Maritime Archaic Reproductions

I've been plugging away at my sections in the Bird Cove Groswater and Maritime Archaic papers which are technically due today.  Hopefully I can at least get my parts written by Monday morning.  Its tough getting back into peer reviewed writing.  Blog writing is pretty forgiving by comparison, although I'm sure I'm much more likely to make mistakes here.  If you see an error here, please correct me.

Beaches Maritime Archaic Points

While researching the papers, I was looking through reports at the Provincial Archaeology Office yesterday and came across something kind of interesting in Paul Carignan's Mercury Series volume, The Beaches: A Multi Component Habitation Site in Bonavista Bay.  In the 1970s, he found several stemmed Maritime Archaic points from this Newfoundland site that appear to have been resharpened while they were hafted.  In the photo on the left, you can see that the widest part of the point, just above the stem is straight and parallel sided, but then halfway to the tip they take a sharp turn and become pointed.  You resharpen a point by removing flakes from the edge, but you can't remove flakes from the part of the tool hidden under hafting material, so the shape of the point changes as it is resharpened.  I think the parallel-sided part of the point and the stem were hidden under hafting material and only the small triangular tip was exposed and available to be resharpened.

I've only been wrapping the stem

 They got me thinking that maybe I've been hafting stemmed Maritime Archaic Indian points incorrectly.   I haven't seen the actual artifacts, but the photos in Carignan's reports make me think that the points were covered with lashings partway up the blade.  When I've been hafting stemmed Maritime Archaic points I've only been wrapping the binding material around the wood and stem, but now I believe that the wrapping should extend much higher.

I think they were hafted like this

The Maritime Archaic Indian stemmed points recovered at the Beaches site all seem to have significant resharpening around the tip.  The big change in the angle that takes place partway up the blade is most likely due to the points being resharpened in the haft, meaning that the wider part of the base of the blade was covered by wrapping.  Its such a large area, that it probably also helps narrow down the hafting material to something like rawhide, or perhaps some sort of vegetable cordage or spruce root.  Sinew seems unlikely to me now, because its such a fine thread that it would take a lot of wrapping to cover such a large area.

Saglek Bay Maritime Archaic Point

The stemmed points that I 've been making are a little different from these and I've been using Ramah chert artifacts from Saglek Bay in Labrador as my references.  The Maritime Archaic stemmed points from Labrador have a little more sharply defined shoulders than the points from the Beaches, which have a softer transition from the stem to the blade, perhaps another clue that they were designed to accomodate lashing all the way from the stem, up the shoulders and onto the blade.  I haven't noticed obvious resharpening on the stemmed points from Labrador, but there is sometimes a subtle change in the edge angle at about the same point.  Going back and looking at my reproductions, I realize that I've been building that angle change into the points, but never actually making the connection that it might indicate a hafting area.

I think the hafting should extend higher.

 Since I can't sell Ramah chert, I've been saving the Ramah stemmed points that I make in public flintknapping demonstrations and hafting them in a set of foreshafts.  The idea was to haft every one with a different binding material, to try to show the variability that's possible and illustrate as many options as possible.  I won't undo the ones that I've already done, because they still demonstrate that point, but I will start hafting more stemmed points with lashings that cover the base of the blade.  What do you think? Are their other options or explanations?


Photo Credits:
1,3,6: Tim Rast
2,4: Modified images from Paul Carignan 1973, Prehistoric Cultural Traditions at The Beaches Site, DeAk-1 Bonavista Bay. MA Thesis, Anthropology Memorial University of Newfoundland.
5: Photo from Museum Notes - The Maritime Archaic Tradition by James Tuck

A Day of Seal Needs Your Help!

Dress like these people - they're professionals.

We are looking for volunteers, large boiling pots, and propane tanks for a fun day of Hooded Seal processing on Saturday (or Sunday, if Saturday's weather is bad) at the university campus.  Eliza Brandy, an archaeology graduate student at Memorial University of Newfoundland is boiling down the seal skeleton so that it can be used in the archaeology department's comparative faunal collection.  Lori and I will be taking our sealskin thong along (its stretched to over 335 feet now) to shave with stone tools while we are waiting for the bones to boil clean.

Please?

If you are interested in helping out, we could use your hands and the loan of large boil up pots and propane tanks for the day.  We'll get started at 10 AM on Saturday, May 15th, 2010 on the lawn behind Queen's College (next to Bitters) on the MUN Campus (map here).  There is more information and a chance to RSVP on the event's Facebook Page.

I'm excited to see the skeleton being cleaned and I'm curious about shaving the hair off the sealskin.   I tested a small area and the skin is stiff enough that the hair can be scraped off fairly easily.  It reminds me of a muskrat tail when its shaved.  I'll bring along flakes of obsidian, various Newfoundland cherts, Bloody Bay Cove Rhyolite, and Ramah Chert to test.  Which material will be your favourite?

Only 334 and a half feet to go!

You'll want to wear old clothes, and perhaps even rain gear.  The skin has dried considerably, but its still going to be greasy. I didn't get a photo of the shaved section of skin until it was raining (again), so it looks a little messier in the picture that it actually is.  The skin itself is fairly dry, but still greasy to handle, like a piece of beef jerky and the hair is still holding a fair bit of grease.

Photo Credits:
1: John Erwin
2-4: Tim Rast

Ramah Wrap-Up

The Rooms demo went well yesterday. There was a steady stream of people throughout the afternoon. I finished one point and started on a second biface. Almost every kind of stone tool from every precontact culture found in Newfoundland and Labrador was made from Ramah chert on occasion, but I'm always drawn to the Maritime Archaic stemmed points that came from Saglek Bay.

Jim Tuck wrote this about Ramah Chert in 1976 and it sums up why I like making the Saglek style stemmed points:

Ramah chert apparently has the qualities that allow it to be easily flaked into tools and weapons that are thin, symmetrical, and appear to us to be very well and carefully made. In fact this material may have been so superior in its flaking attributes to quartzite, quartz crystal, and other substances formerly in use, that it actually brought about some significant changes in the form (rather than the "finish") of many Maritime Archaic chipped stone artifacts. The thick, rather small projectile points, made prior to about 5,000 years ago, are replaced by much thinner examples, very flat in cross-section, with longer stems, much more even edges, surfaces, and a greater degree of symmetry. (Jim Tuck, Newfoundland and Labrador Prehistory 1976)

Some tools types are so strongly associated with a particular type of stone that they just don't look right unless they are made from that specific kind of rock. That's the case with Ramah Chert and the Saglek style of stemmed points. I like the idea that discovering this new source of stone 5000 years ago actually allowed the Maritime Archaic people to create new kinds styles of tools.

Photo Credits:
1, 3: Tim Rast
2: Jim Tuck, Newfoundland and Labrador Prehistory, National Museum of Man 1976

Photo Captions:
1: Ramah Chert Maritime Archaic Reproduction knapped point
2: Ramah Chert artifacts from Saglek Bay
3: Ramah point and antler pressure flaker used to make it

A Ramah Chert Maritime Archaic Spear

I recently completed a special reproduction using Ramah chert, which was intended as a surprise gift. Its been delivered, so its safe to post about it now. Ramah chert is an almost impossible stone for a flintknapper to get to work, unless you know an archaeologist who has been given special permission to collect samples of the rock from the quarry.

I'm allowed to work the stone for experimental and educational purposes, but its not something that I can sell. Stuart, a colleague of mine who was fortunate enough to visit the quarry and collect samples of Ramah chert, commissioned me to work his Ramah core into a reproduction of a Maritime Archaic Indian spear as a gift for his thesis supervisor, who also works in Labrador. The core was an unworked brick shaped nodule. I worked it entirely with stone and antler. My percussion tools are alway stone and antler, but I do use copper-tipped pressure flakers in a lot of my work, although I don't like using copper on Ramah. I started using antler pressure flakers on Ramah during demonstrations for a more authentic feel, but now I genuinely prefer working the material with antler pressure flakers, even when there's no one watching. Antler just grips the edge better. I think that the slightly wider and softer tip of an antler tine is better suited to the sugary texture of Ramah.

The spearpoint in the reproduction is 4 inches long and based on the very cool stemmed points from Saglek Bay in Northern Labrador. The original artifacts are amongst the earliest and most distinctive stone tools made from Ramah chert and the occupation at Saglek Bay dates between 4530 and 3890 years ago.

The shaft is made from a quarter of a split spruce pole. Its from the pole that I was splitting with the assistance of the pièces esquillées a couple weeks ago. Interestingly, this spruce pole is a recycled piece of wood from an earlier art installation by Janet Davis.

Her husband, Duke, originally harvested it to use as one of the poles in the fish flake that supported Janet's massive hooked rug called Clifford's Education Fund, while it was on display in St. John's. I like the notion of reusing the wood as I can imagine exactly the same scenario happening in the past. The poles used in smoking or drying racks by the Maritime Archaic Indians would have been a good source of seasoned wood for spear shafts and other implements when the need arose.

Stuart and I talked about foreshafts, but since there's no wood preservation from Maritime Archaic sites its impossible to know whether or not they used spears with foreshafts. Either scenario seems plausible and for simplicity's sake we opted for a spear without a foreshaft. In the end, its 5'11" long and covered in red ochre. The lashing on the spear is rawhide and I like the idea of coating the spear with red ochre mixed with oil, especially over the binding area, as a form of waterproofing. Plus, it just looks really cool.

Maritime Archaic Indian Spear Reproduction

(Ramah Chert, spruce, rawhide, hide glue, sealskin, red ochre)

Private Commission

Its a light throwing spear, almost an oversized dart, which I kind of like. I wrapped a sealskin binding around the balance point to create a javelin grip for it, and when you hold it you just want to throw it at something. But its also light enough that if the Maritime Archaic Indians used some form of spear thrower, then this could be a large atlatl dart. There's no direct evidence for spear throwers amongst the Maritime Archaic of Newfoundland and Labrador, but it seems plausible, probably even likely, that they had the technology. We just don't have any proof yet.

If you are in St. John's and interested in learning more about Ramah Chert, I'll be knapping a piece this Sunday, February 21st, 2010, at The Rooms. Everyone's welcome!

Photo Credits:
1-4,6-8: Tim Rast
5: Janet Davis

Photo Captions:
1: The finished spearpoint against a background of Ramah Flakes
2: Stuart's Ramah core and the tools used to work it
3: The Ramah Chert point used in the reproduction
4: The split spruce pole
5: Clifford's Education Fund by Janet Davis
6: The rawhide lashing in place and drying - the purple rubber band is there to smooth down the edges of the rawhide as it dries
7: The complete spear: Ramah Chert, Spruce, Rawhide, Hide Glue, Sealskin, and Red Ochre
8: The finished spear

First Glimpse

A week or two ago I signed a contract with Parks Canada for a number of artifact reproductions. The artifacts have been shipped to St. John's and today I get my first peak at them. The work is scheduled to take 13 full time weeks, which makes it the single largest reproduction job that Elfshot has ever received. It's also one that I know I'm going to enjoy. The contract went through a public tendering process and the reproductions are intended for public programming, but its still government, and they can be weird about how information is distributed, so for the time being I'm going to refrain from going into too much detail. Until I know what I can and can't blog about, I'll just refer to it as my Top Secret Project of Mystery, so you won't be curious and leave it at that.

In the meantime, I'll just remind you about the Beer Bottle to Arrowhead - Introductory Flintknapping Workshop that I'll be offering this weekend at the GEO CENTRE. $40/person - you get a flintknapping kit to keep plus your first beer bottle point arrowhead. June 28th, 1-4PM. Click here for more details. YOU MUST REGISTER IN ADVANCE.

The photos in this post are the two pieces that I made in the flintknapping demo on Father's Day at the GEO CENTRE, using antler and stone knapping tools. The big one still hasn't broke, but it has a couple flaws in the material that had me thinking it would break on any strike. That made the knapping tricky and I've set it aside to finish it another day. As I was working I assumed that the tip would break off and I wouldn't have to worry about finishing that end of it. But it hung in there and as a consequence of planning for one thing and having another thing happen the tip isn't in very good shape to finish and I started running into step and hinge fractures. I'll solve the problem on another day, probably by making a shorter biface out of it. Ramah Chert has an annoying habit of leaving very visible step fractures and being surprisingly resilient. This isn't the first piece that I've had that should have broke along an internal flaw, but that held together for much longer than I was expecting.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Photo Captions:
Top, Ramah Chert Biface in Progress - made on June 21st, 2009
Bottom, Ramah Chert projectile point reproduction based on Maritime Archaic points found in Labrador.

Flintknapping at the GEO CENTRE

June 21st, 2009 - Father's Day Flintknapping Demonstration

Johnson GEO CENTRE, St. John's, NL
1-4 PM

I'll be demonstrating how stone tools were made using traditional stone and antler knapping tools. I'll be using Ramah Chert for this demo! Drop in anytime.


Free with Admission to the GEO CENTRE -- Dad's get in free!

June 28th, 2009 - Flintknapping Workshop
Johnson GEO CENTRE, St. John's, NL
1-4 PM

This is a Beer Bottle to Arrowhead workshop - learn the fundementals of flintknapping and take home a flintknapping kit and any arrowheads you make during the afternoon. The workshop starts with a demonstration of the complete flintknapping process, from obsidian core to finished point. Then you'll have the opportunity to make your own beer bottle point!

Band-aids supplied.

Workshop Fee: $40/person

Contact the Keith Moore at the Johnson GEO CENTRE to register ((709) 737-7886) - the workshop is limited to 15 people, so please register early. Ages 12 and up.

Lost Stone

For the next day or two I'll be working on obsidian Lost Stone necklaces and earrings. These are a relatively new product for me -- I made the first ones in 2006 and started wholesaling them in 2007.

The inspiration for these came from a Ramah chert necklace that I made for a friend's wedding in 2006. I made a Ramah necklace for the bride and cufflinks for the groom. These were gifts. I'm pretty limited with how I can work Ramah chert, because the stone comes from an archaeological site and has federal and provincial protection. If someone gets permission to collect the stone, then I can work it for them, but I don't sell the stone myself.

The Lost Stone necklaces and earrings that I sell are made from obsidian or flint, which are also translucent, like Ramah chert. I call them Lost Stone because they are made from flakes, which I normally don't keep. They are the by-product of flintknapping. Each flake is simple and somewhat random, so the jewelry I make from them emphasizes the colour and pattern in the stone more than the shape imposed on it by the flintknapper. I make the necklaces in two sizes, large and small -- small necklaces have 5 or fewer pendants - large necklaces have more. Small flint or obsidian Lost Stone necklaces retail for $115 tax inc and large necklaces are $155.25 tax inc.

I had no idea I was going to talk about the Lost Stone series today. I had a very confusing week last week and I'm trying to get as many small jobs out of my head as possible. I got two wholesale orders finished and out the door last week, plus the remainder of the sandbox dig items heading to Gros Morne. I received a couple new wholesale orders to fill in June and we had a few visitors to the house last week who stayed anywhere from an hour to 3 days.

Then on Friday, when I got back from my run I started hiccuping. It lasted for 12 hours. I'd manage to stop long enough to fall asleep and then 2 hours later I'd wake up and start hiccuping again. By the time Saturday came around I was exhausted, confused, and stupid. Hopefully this week is a little simpler. I only have two orders to finish before the AGM starts on Friday.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Photo Captions:
Top: 3 Large Lost Stone Necklaces. The top two are obsidian, and the lower one is flint.
Middle: Ramah Chert necklace - the inspiration for all other Lost Stone necklaces.
Bottom: Large Lost Stone flint necklace and earrings.

Ramah Chert

I found out a couple weeks ago that I got published in 2008! Lori brought me home a copy of the journal yesterday. My contribution is a pretty informal write-up that I did about an evening of knapping Ramah chert in 2001, but there are some really interesting articles in the rest of the volume. There are a couple of articles about Snack Cove, Labrador, which I mentioned in an earlier blog about my favourite barrel lid dartboard. There's also a well illustrated article about some of the spectacular caches that have been found in Labrador.

North Atlantic Archaeology Vol. 1 2008. Lisa Rankin at Memorial University of Newfoundland's Archaeology Unit is the contact person to buy a copy; $35 (or $25 for students). For Ramah chert enthusiasts, this looks like a good journal to have on your shelf.

Ramah chert is a peculiar stone from Northern Labrador that seems to have captured people's imagination since the source was found by the Maritime Archaic Indians several thousand years ago. The stone is found in archaeological sites throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, into Quebec and the Maritime Provinces. There was an isolated find of a Ramah chert arrowhead in a Viking grave in Greenland and within the past year its been identified in collections from Manitoba. Archaeologists and flintknappers seem drawn to the unusual appearance of the stone, which has been described by Jim Tuck as looking like slush on a windshield. The Innu say it looks like caribou grease.

The remoteness of the quarry source in Ramah Bay adds to the stone's mystery. At first glance the sugary texture of the stone doesn't appear to be an ideal candidate for flintknapping compared to some of the extremely fined grained cherts throughout the province. However, when you actually knap the rock it performs above average and it turns out that its a pleasure to work. There are very good, functional reasons to choose this particular stone above others.

Whitridge's Sampler is set of Labrador reproductions made from Ramah chert that I did for Pete Whitridge, who has been doing archaeological work in Northern Labrador for several years. He contacted me after one of his field seasons to tell me that he'd visited the Ramah quarry and that he had a piece for me. The only thing he asked in exchange was that I make an endblade or two out of it for him. An endblade is the stone tip of a harpoon and they are about the size of the end of your thumb, so I was expecting a fist-sized core. When I went to pick up the rock from him he gave me a core the size of a cinder block! I didn't feel that one endblade was quite an appropriate payment, so I made up the Whitridge sampler to say 'thanks!'


Photo Credits:
Tim Rast

Photo Captions:
Top, Journal front and back cover.
Middle Right, Large Core of Ramah Chert
Middle Left, Cover of Whitridge's Sampler
Bottom, Ramah Chert Bifaces in the sampler.