Arctic Artifact Reproductions

I'm working on two sets of artifact reproductions for a traveling mock archaeology dig initiated by Nunavut's Inuit Heritage Trust to be used by school groups across the territory.  One set represents the early Inuit, or Thule culture, and the other illustrates the preceding Dorset Palaeoeskimo culture.  We want to include a few finished, diagnostic tools as well as some debitage, broken pieces, and bones to represent the range of materials commonly found in an archaeological assemblage.

The plan is to include artifacts with similar functions, like harpoon heads, within both sets so that the similarities and differences can be discussed.  Different manufacturing methods between the two cultures will also be highlighted, like the drilled holes in the Thule/Inuit slate, whalebone, and ivory tools and the gouged holes in the Dorset antler, slate, and wood artifacts.

 

A Dorset harpoon head and tip fluted endblade.  The earlier chipped stone endblade will be contrasted with more recent ground slate and copper versions.

The sets are coming together.  I'll probably do a bit of antiquing on the artifacts to help them look more like lost tools that have been buried for hundreds of years.  The act of burying and retrieving them will further help age the materials.  

One of these walrus ivory harpoon head blanks will be finished and included in the kit, along with a matching copper or slate endblade.  The other one will be used in an upcoming reproduction of a compete Thule harpoon.

We want to include a cold hammered copper endblade in the Thule/Inuit set, along with the slate endblade.  Only one will fit the slot in the matching harpoon.  I haven't decided which yet, but I'm leaning towards the copper blade.  That leaves the possibility of the slate point being an arrowhead or lancehead open for the students to ponder. 

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

A Few New Dorset Reproductions

Chert, slate, and nephrite tools

I'm back in the workshop after being away for several weeks.  After a bit of clean-up last week, I'm slowly working my way back into production.  I've lost the calluses on my hands for pressure flaking, so I worked on a bit of ground stone after finishing a pair of simple Dorset Palaeoeskimo chipped stone artifact reproductions.  When the set is complete, these pieces will go into a mock dig kit that I'm helping the Inuit Heritage Trust assemble.  There are a few more Dorset and Thule Inuit pieces to construct for the kit over the next week or two.

A little Dorset knife blade (chert), endscraper (chert), and burin-like tool bit (nephrite).

Edge view of the knife

Knapped chert scraper and knife blade.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Participate in Archaeology Blogging Research

Fleur Schinning is currently writing her master’s thesis as a part of a specialisation in Heritage Management at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Her research will focus on the use of blogs and social media and how they contribute to the accessibility of archaeology in the Netherlands.

For her research she will be looking at several blogs from the UK, USA, and Canada to explore how blogging in archaeology contributes to public archaeology. She has set up a brief questionnaire to ask blog visitors about their motives for visiting archaeology blogs.  If you are reading this, then you are qualified to participate!

If you'd like to help Fleur with her research, the questionnaire can be viewed here: http://goo.gl/forms/z3BAUTyYUL. All participants also have a chance to win a small prize; 6 issues of Archaeology Magazine!

Image Credit: http://www.socialsciences.leiden.edu/plato/climate/project-partners/plato.html

Life on the Tundra

Young Arctic Hare

Many of the baby animals on the tundra have instincts to freeze and blend with the boulders and vegetation.

Overflowing nest of Lapland Longspur chicks.

Perfectly mute.  They'd be easy prey for a fox if they made a peep.

We saw this thing swimming in the river and didn't know what it was at first.  It looked like a seal, but we were 35 km inland.

It turned out it was a fox.  Not even the water is safe from this little jerks anymore.  Stay vigilant.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Wrapping up the summer

Drilled slate point 

It was a brief field season this year in Nunavut and it's all over now but the packing.  The weather is a big factor in the successes and set-backs of fieldwork and this year the rain and snow clouds cooperated with us.  We lost an hour here and there, but we didn't lose a single day to inclement weather.  The interior travel and caribou hunting sites that we worked at are notoriously shy of artifacts because they were very briefly occupied and people traveled lightly.  Still, we found a sampling of stone, bone, wood, antler, and metal artifacts to give us a glimpse of Inuit life in the area over the past few hundred years.

Taking Notes

The relentlessly pleasant weather and long field days meant there was little quiet time around camp or in the lab to reflect on the weeks as they flew by.  I haven't sorted through the photos I took and this is my first blog post since the first day in the field a month ago.  Here are a few of my favourite photos of sites and artifacts from this season.

Excavating tent rings

A small piece of worked wood, about the diameter of a pencil, resting on sphagnum moss

There were at least four tent rings at this site.

A longer piece of wood on sphagnum moss.  This site has lots of wood fragments about the right size to be arrowshafts, but nothing terribly diagnostic, so it's possible that they had other functions.

A small antler artifact with a scarfed end.

Recording a tent ring in front of a blind. 

This slate point was found at a location that would have been good for caribou hunting.  It's probably an arrowhead or small lance tip.

 Photo Credits: 
1, 3-9: Tim Rast
2: Lori White

First Day on Site

Our first site of the season greeted us with a brief shower followed by a nice bright rainbow.  By the time I took this photo the rainbow had retreated to the far side of the river, but when it first appeared it ended right on our tent rings.

The Red-Throated Loons also met us with curiosity.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Blog Post #1000

This is the 1000th Elfshot blog post and with it, I'm packing my bags in a different way.

Groswater Palaeoeskimo
Harpoon Head

I started this blog back in 2009.  Within the first couple of months I adopted the routine of publishing a new post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I liked the structured of it.  It forced me to write about something whether I was feeling it or not and sometimes the posts that I never would have thought to write turned out to be the ones that people responded most enthusiastically to.  Still, it was hard to maintain that schedule and with fieldwork and travel I would have to plan ahead and schedule weeks or even months of previously prepared posts (like this one) in order to maintain that Monday/Wednesday/Friday pattern.

On the downside, that create a lot of "filler" posts that were not necessarily on the major themes of this blog, which are archaeology, craft, and artifact reproductions.  My schedule, work, and interests change a lot through the year and when I'm working on some projects it seems like three posts a week isn't enough.  At other times it's a struggle to come up with content that is on theme and I end up posting weak or off-topic posts.

Groswater Endblade

Beginning with post 1001, I'm going to start going off schedule, but not off topic.  I don't know whether I'm going to blog more or blog less and I don't know when the next post will go up, other than it will be when I have something to say.

Thanks everyone that has tuned in so far. Hopefully I'll have some stories and photos from the field soon.

Cheers,
Tim

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast