Beothuk and Dorset Palaeoeskimo Reproductions

Beothuk and Dorset
Palaeoeskimo Reproductions

Here's a final look at the Dorset Palaeoeskimo and Beothuk artifact reproductions that I completed earlier this week for an updated display that is being developed to interpret the archaeology of Dildo Island.  These reproductions represent the types of tools found at the site(s), although they aren't exact copies of individual pieces.  I used other archaeological sites and historic references from Newfoundland and Labrador to fill in the gaps.  There is one more large Beothuk piece to complete and deliver at a later date, but I need to harvest a sheet of birchbark sometime over the next couple of months to make that happen.  

In the last photo that I showed of this little soapstone lamp, it was shiny and green because I had a fresh coat of oil on it.  Here it is a few days later, after the oil has soaked in and dried to a nice matte grey colour.  The soot staining around the base remains dark.

Clockwise from 12 o'clock: Dorset Harpoon (wood, antler, bone, chert, sinew, sealskin, hide glue), Dorset pot (soapstone), Dorset unhafted scraper (chert), Dorset hafted scraper (chert, wood, sinew, hide glue), Dorset hafted knife (chert, antler, sinew, hide glue), Dorset unhafted knife blade (chert), awl (bone - this tool is generic enough that it could belong to either culture), three Beothuk Arrows (chert, pine, goose feathers, sinew, hide glue, red ochre)

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

CCI Archaeological Conservation Workshop

Cliff Cook and the underbelly of a plaster of
paris block lift in chloroplast form

Cliff Cook, from the Canadian Conservation Institute is in St. John's delivering a two day workshop on archaeological conservation field techniques.  The first day was excellent.  We spent the morning in the classroom and the afternoon in the lab practicing block lifts.  Block lifts are used to carefully remove artifacts from a site along with their surrounding soil matrix so that they can be carefully excavated uncovered in controlled conditions in the lab.  It's rare that artifacts will need to be treated this way, so by practicing in the lab we can gain experience with a lot of different techniques that might work in different situations in the field.  We used all sorts of materials to secure the blocks, including plaster of paris, gauze, wax, resin, foam, and dry ice.  We learned a range of techniques for protecting the artifacts and transporting the blocks.  Its an excellent course - a lot like learning first aid for your fragile artifacts.  Big thanks to MUN's Department of Archaeology Conservator, Donna Teasdale, for organizing this event. 

Using dry ice to freeze an artifact and the surrounding soil into a solid block that can then be transported off the site in a solid block.

Dry ice and soil

Using a freeze spray to quickly freeze a small textile fragment

Cellophane is used to keep the artifact from sticking to the block material.  Damp paper towels are used to lock in moisture, and tin foil is used to create a barrier to pour plaster or resin against.

Jason and Miki are planning a block lift using a resin gauze designed for making casts around broken bones.

Assorted blocks.  Different types of blocks will last different lengths of time.  The frozen blocks might thaw out in a few minutes or hours, while the plaster, foam, or resin blocks are stable for months or years.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Assembled Beothuk Arrow Reproductions

Chert and iron arrowheads and Beothuk arrow reproductions

The Beothuk arrow reproductions that I talked about on Friday are assembled now and stained with red ochre and oil.  I've made plenty of these arrows with stone points over the years, but this set includes the first arrow that I've made with a hammered iron arrowhead made from a modified nail.  I have made look-alike arrows for film props in this style, but they weren't hammered out of nails and lashed on in the correct fashion. I left off Friday's post wondering about the change in Beothuk arrows that came with the adoption of arrowheads hammered out of nails.

Pine shafts, goose feathers, chert or iron arrowheads, sinew and hide glue binding, red ochre and oil stain

Stone and iron points. The pointy part
of the arrowhead doesn't change a
great deal, but the hafting area of
the arrowheads are very different.

The iron arrowheads were hafted differently because the body of the nail was used as a long skinny tang that would have been lashed into a channel gouged in the side of the arrow shaft.  In contrast, the chert arrowheads that the Beothuk and their ancestors made were designed to be tied into a slot cut into the end of the arrow shaft.  The process of chipping the corner notches into the stone arrowhead created backward facing barbs, so that when the arrow went in, it wouldn't come back out again.  These barbs disappear on the iron nail arrowheads.  The general size and shape of the cutting and piercing part of the arrowhead isn't much different, but the barbs, which had been part of Beothuk arrowhead design for centuries suddenly vanish on the iron arrowheads.  It would have required a little extra effort, but it would have been possible to cut or grind barbs into the iron arrowheads, however the Beothuk chose not to.

Modified nail arrowhead (left)
Knapped chert arrowhead (right)

One difference between iron and stone would be the durability of the arrowheads.  A stone point is very likely to break if it encounters a bone or hits a stone or root on a missed shot, whereas an iron point is much more durable.  Perhaps the barbless design of the iron points is evidence that iron-tipped arrows were designed to be re-used.  Without the barbs, arrows could easily be withdrawn from the killed animal.  With stone points the chance of the point being re-usable was much lower, so there's no reason to make the design easy to remove from the wound.  The iron would also probably have a little more value associated with it, both because its durable, but also because its new and rare, compared to stone.  Again, this would create more incentive to retrieve and reuse the arrows.

Arrowhead and two feather fletching based on historic descriptions and drawings of Beothuk arrows

The same arrowhead and feathers shown in profile.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Tying on Beothuk Points

Chert and Iron
Beothuk arrowhead
Reproductions

I'm working on a few Beothuk arrows today.  I'm tying points and feathers on to the pine shafts so that I can ochre stain them.  Since I had a few modified iron nail points on hand from a previous project, I decided to try hafting one on to a complete arrow.   The introduction of iron nails to the Beothuk tool kit changed the way points were hafted, although you can still use sinew and glue to tie them to the shaft.  The main difference is that the long tangs would have been tied into a narrow channel carved down along the arrow shaft from the tip, rather than inserted into a cut slot, like the knapped stone points.  The end result would have differed from the stone tipped points in a couple of ways - first the points made on nails would have been slightly heavier, giving more forward weight to the arrow and secondly the prominent barbs on the corner notched chert arrowheads are gone from the slender, leaf-shaped arrowheads hammered out of iron nails.  Would the heavier points penetrate farther and eliminate the need for barbs to prevent the arrow from backing out of the wound?  Or was it just too much of a hassle to cut and file barbs into a hammered iron point?

A side view of an iron point (top) and a stone point (bottom).  The long tang of the iron point needs a lot more sinew lashing to completely encase it.  

Chert, corner notched Recent Indian projectile point reproduction

I think you can see a little more clearly that iron tang fits in a slot running along the outside edge of the wood arrow shaft.  The two points have comparable cutting edges and angles, but the iron point is a little heavier and lacks the prominent barbs of the stone point.  

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

A Dorset Palaeoeskimo Set of Reproductions

The Dorset Palaeoeskimo artifact reproductions that I'm working on for the interpretation of the archaeology sites on Dildo Island are all finished.  However, as I write this, I realize that technically there was a harpoon in this set as well, but since all I did on that was make a replacement endblade for one that was lost over the years it slipped my mind.  Oh well.  Here's most of the Dorset pieces; a small soapstone pot, a hafted and unhafted chert scraper and a hafted and unhafted chert knife.

Chert scraper with twisted sinew lashing on a wood handle.  I'm not exactly sure what type of wood I used for the handle, it was left over from a recent project.  It might have been willow.

A Dorset knife with a handle inspired by handles found at Port au Choix, Newfoundland and Labrador.  There is also a replacement blade made from a nice banded grey chert leaning against the soapstone vessel in the background.

My main influence or the scraper handle was this wood scraper handle (right) in the Button Point collection from Bylot Island.  I saw this handle at the Canadian Museum of History when I was there a couple weeks ago to look at the drums in the same collection.  Its a simple open socket, with a well defined groove for lashing.  

The soapstone pot in the background is the same one that I showed in the previous post.  Aside from a little bit of finishing carving and abrading, the main difference is the antiquing, which was done by oiling the soapstone, smearing in charcoal and scorching it in a candle flame.  I haven't quite worked out a way to add thick layers of burnt grease to a reproduction, but it's relatively simple to add a dark stain of soot to make something appear fire-kissed.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Palaeoeskimo Soapstone Pots

I'm working on a set of Dorset Palaeoeskimo tools, including a small soapstone pot or lamp.  I wasn't really thinking things through when I started carving soapstone today as we are having water interruptions on our street again thanks to the sewer upgrade.  I don't need water for the carving, but soapstone is so dusty that I get covered in chalky white powder from head to toe on every trip to the workshop.  Fortunately its raining, so I could at least splash some rain water on my face until they hook up our waterlines again.

The first vessel that I started on cracked down the middle while I was chiseling out the interior.  Its far enough along that I could use it in a sandbox dig someday or even finish it and repair it with some traditional repair techniques, so its not a total waste.  The second one is turning out a little bit better, or at least it hasn't broke yet.  Its more or less roughed out.  I opted for a simple rectangular form with slightly sloping walls.  The soapstone I'm using is fine enough that I could push it and make a very thin walled lamp, but the soapstone fragments from the site that this vessel will help interpret had relatively thick walled pots, so I think I'll probably leave it as is.  It just needs a bit of finishing and I need to make a final pass on the rim, perhaps adding more of an outside bevel.

The soapstone that I'm using is from Green's Rock and Lapidary in Calgary, so it's not a local stone.  Its extremely soft, which means that I've been able to do a lot of the work with hand tools, although I used a drill to open up the interior.  Even so, the hand tools that I've been using have been metal, so I'll probably make a final pass over the whole surface using a scraper like the one on the railing beside the pot in this photo to leave appropriate stone abrasion marks on the surface.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Water and Sewer Distractions Return

Our street is a little bit gone

I don't think I've gone into a lot of detail here on the blog about our sewer and plumbing woes over the past year or so, but those who know us, know that Lori and I have had ongoing water issues in our house and on our street for a long time.  I would have needed a separate daily blog to keep track of all of the twists and turns that the leaks, backups, trenches, floods, new hookups, remodeling, demolition, renovations, and re-routing took in our basement, through the sidewalk, and into the street.  The sewer and water pipes that we had to deal with were less than 30 feet long, but that length spanned three jurisdictions, from inside our house (our problem, our plumber) , through the sidewalk (city's problem, municipal workers), and into the street (city's problem, contract construction company).  Trying to coordinate the repairs and replacement of pipes across those three jurisdictions over a year's time has been disruptive at best and all-consuming at worst.

This was the trench in front of our house last night.  If you look at the backhoe in the upper right corner of the photo you can see that it is sitting on backfill overlaying three big pipes.  The big black culvert in line with the backhoe scoop in the deepest part of the trench is the storm drain.  Prior to this upgrade, the sewer lines from all of the houses on our side of the street drained into it.  Now we are connected into the smaller green sewer pipe just above it and to the left.  The little waterfall running down into the basin in front of the big black storm drain pipe is flowing out of the old sewer pipe that was connected to the houses on the other side of the street.   The rest of the water flowing into the pipe is coming from the disconnected storm sewer in line with it upstream.  The backhoe at the top of the photo is sitting with its left tread over the sewer pipe and its right tread over the new main water line. 

The green pipes are for the sewer and the big blue pipes are the new waterline.  The skinny blue hula hoop is a loop of blue municipex pipe that runs from the main line to each house.  

One of the white sewer
lines being buried runs
 into our house

Anyhow, we're hoping that things have turned a corner today.  The major sewer upgrade on our street has finally made it's way to our house and we are now completely tied in to the new sewer system.  We had new pipes installed last fall inside our house and under the sidewalk, but they were still running into the storm drains (like every other house on our side of the street).  Today the last stretch of pipe was added and we have all new sewer pipes running from the inside of the house to the middle of the street and on down the line to a treatment plant, instead of flowing into the Waterford River and exiting into the St. John's harbour.

This trench migrates up the street.  The backhoe at the far end of the trench digs out the leading edge of the hole and the one at this end fills it back in again as the workers install the pipes in the bottom of the trench.  They travel at a rate of a few houses a day

The view out of my office window 

While the trench was open through the sidewalk last fall to replace the city's length of sewer pipe between our house and the street we asked the municipal workers to add a new plastic "municipex" waterline to the trench.  This line would eventually replace the existing copper pipes that were installed when the house was built in the 1930s.  That municipex line was hooked up inside our house today by plumbers that we hired and the other end of it is tied into a temporary waterline that is being used on our block while the main line is replaced.  So technically, there will be one more operation on that end of the line by the contract workers hired by the city to do the sewer upgrade, but it shouldn't involve us.  We can begin to focus on putting our house back together after having the house torn apart for months waiting for all the little pieces of the puzzle to come together.

Inside the house is our problem.  Our shut off valve and sewer cleanout used to be in a closet in the corner of the basement, but because we have a porch over that area now we couldn't dig up that part of the sidewalk outside of the house.  That meant re-routing the water and sewer pipes about 8 feet into the main room in the basement.  Now that everything is hooked up again we can begin encasing and refinishing that wall.  We'll need to create some sort of removable access box to cover the valve and drain.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast