Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Primitive Skills => Topic started by: snedeker on August 02, 2007, 11:23:16 am
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My bow production is down this summer cause I've been doing some real archaeology for a change. I'm a consultant and a lot of what I do is pretty routine bull. We got to dig a site near Altoona PA though that I'm writing up the report on, that turned out pretty cool. On a little hillside northeast (upwnd) of a stream confluence, used to be a spring next to it til the highway screwed it over. People used is as a butchering and hideworking station it appears from late Paleo times through the Early Archaic (8,500-6,800 BC). Couple dozen projectile point/knives (no bow/arrows then of course) that were very hard to diagnose. Amazing how poorly known this area is archaeologically. Did microwear studies and ID'ed mostly hide working wear on tools. Did protein residue studies and came up with a lot of dog and rodent type matches as opposed to dear - weird until a colleague told me about small mammal gut being a popular hafting wrap for prim hunters. Spatial distribution patterns showed a remarkable stablity of where things were done, surprising cause I think it was mulitple small visits foro 2000 years. Did survey or stone tool material sources and matched up artifacts do exact sources with mass spectrometry analysis of trace elements. they used a very high grade light tan chert, anbd its interesting cause in ensuing periods they stop usiing that and switch to a gray chert. I know this cause we dug a site half km away 20 years ago and found later stuff and all gray chert.
These hunters would probably have been amused at the studies we did. report due in 2 weeks and then maybe I cab get back into the wood pile.
Dave
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I find this very interestin Dave. Please update as ya can. Down here in florida the state and developers have been screwin' over everythin fer decades unless can be made inta a tourist trap of course !...........bob
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Interesting information, I once found a small point in the garden behind my parents house. I still have that point, and can't help but wonder as to its history.
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Sound pretty cool Dave. Worked on an Archy dig myself back arround 94 on the snake river in OR on a pre European community of pit houses dug into terraces allong the river valley. Found lots of Mattates and yellow and red chert points allong with many other artifacts. Fresh water was close by and lots of salmon bones along with deer and others were found. But the the majority was salmon since the snake has salmon runs in the fall. The opinion was that the village was part of a systematic round but I had my own theory that they were also farming corn in the valley across from the village which was situated in a chaperal canyon just off the river with a fresh source of water running through the small valley. Wish I could have gone back and do some more research. Ahh but allas there seems to be little money in archealogy, now I make soap for a living! ;D
David T
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That is great information. Do you mean that you can determine what type of animal a stone blade was used to butcher or cut up, based upon protein residue? I would also love to get more information as you have it available.
Harold
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keep the info coming. i deal with a lady from the local institute who saw me knapping and freaked to see somebody using stone tools. it opened her eyes and now i use her eyes to tell me things. although im stubborn and usually disagree. lol. any pics of tools or the site available. peace
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Jamie that last was a bit cryptic. Can you open our "eyes" to what your meant by Freakin and "Using her eyes"? ;D
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i have not, repeat have not, removed her eyes from her head. lol
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Thank you for enlightenning us! I was a bit worried! ;D
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I'll "dig up" a couple of pics of the major tools and post.
The protein residue is interesting. It was borrowed from technology developed in criminal case studies. Apparently each blood serum grouping leaves a pretty identifiable signature. They use a chemical wash to get it. You get a list of serum matches that are to things like
Chicken
Bovine
Dog
Rat
Guinea Pig
Deer
Chicken means it was grouse or something, bovine is eastern woodland bison (for which there was one match), guinea pig relates to small rodents other than rat eg woodchuck or squirrel. there were bison in PA in the 1600s.
I was meeting with a statistician today who is going to tell me from which source they ot the chert present at the site.
More Later
Dave
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Here is a photo showing some projectile points. In the top row, left most one is a drill made on a Plano point (Late Paleo), one to its right is a scraper made out of a used up dalton point of Late Paleo. One to its right is an Early Archaic point from 8,000-7,000 BC, right most is late paleo (8,500-8,000 BC) similar to Greenbrier type. Most of the others we thing are Early Archaic, either Kirk-Palmer like or unknown stemmed. On at bottom right is gray chert Late Archaic point made into hafted scraper
Dave
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Ver interestin' Dave , thx fer sharin'. Early archaic are also interestin' ta woulnd't know the dimensions on bottom 2 on left would ya ?.......bob
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They're about 42 and 48 mm long, 32 mm wide, 7 mm thick. Look like Stanly (Middle Archaic) or Savannah River (Middle to late Archaic) but not quite right. Those types are usually expediently flaked on crud stone but these are finel flaked on primo pieces.
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Keep up the information as we find this very interesting. Or atleast "I" do. :D
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Dave,
Thanks for posting this!
I too, find it fascinating.
Thanks,
Allen
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Some of the tools had preserved residues of pine. I had been wondering why, and then the idea of hafting hit me again. I bet they were using pine resin to secure hafting set ups. So we've got possible evidence of gut haft wrap, pine resin, adn I would imagine they used sinew for some things.
I'm writing the synthesis section now and it helps to gab about it. My chronological interpretations are going to be challenged by the conservative group. Classic Kirk projectile points of the eastern US in the Early Archaic period (8,000-6,800 BC) are supposed to have serrations on the edges. However, my buddy and here note that in nearly 30 years of looking at sites and artifacts in out particular subregion, we have NEVER seen a serrated specimen. Often, they are on fine quality stone and have been kept used, reused, resharpened, reworked.
This site saw mostly hide scraping activities, and they seen to have used old worn out points and scrapers. Yoiu wouldn't want a serrated edge for scraping. All the reworking alters the shape of the point, or instances making the once corner notches look like side notches or even stemmed.
We found that a lot of things called bifaces, that are often though of as preforms for points, were hafted and used as scraping tools too. Tied on with rat gut.
Thank you for letting me ramble.
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dave i just got into a heated argument on monday with an archaeologist about some material he had. one guy said they had knives and another said they were preforms. i said who cares and unless you were there to ask the guy who made them what they were for you'll never really know. i have a box of rocks that gets used for anything. ive used hafted points to cut nocks into another arra. to me you truly cant say what something is specifically for because its multi purpose in the woods. i know its nice to catorgorize things in this modern world but i dont think an abo would have. a lot of the preforms found in this area were traded from new york and maine. so having to carry preforms would of been a lot easier than carrying big chunks of rock back to camp when it was 40-100 miles away. then when you got back you made what ya needed. peace
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Dave................thx fer goin' forth on this. I have ta agree with Jamie, ya will never really know what they were bein' used fer. I luv the way anthros and arch's insist on their conclusions which in many cases dont make sense.They get grants by sayin" its not a pot (cant say that no $) but a funerary object blah-blah-blah" fer example. Happens here all the time when artifacts are found. Earlier man was not wasteful and didnt live in a "throwaway" soceity as we do. Things as Jamie said had multi purposes I suspect,makes sense and earlier man seems ta be very pratical, but see this is again a guess since we weren't there. Very interestin, thx again............bob
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the news is in from the raw material sourcing statistical study. The site stuff most closely matches two sources of chert, one of which is a silicified shale not really knappable. I figure that means they got the stuff from a source close to that but not the actual one we sampled. They pretty much sopped using this fine brown chert around 3500 BC, I figure they must have had to dig for it and later attitudes suggested it wasn't worth it.
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Hey Dave this is great info. Love the pictures. I kinda agree with Jamie in that Good bi faces/preforms are a very usefull way of toting your tools, I have some of my own bi-faces and they are or could be nice knives as well as great scrapers. I have a couple of artifacts--bi-faces that when repositioned in the hand several times that all of a sudden it fits like a glove and you have a hand ax or scraper. No I haven't tried mine on hide yet but on bows and club handles etc they excel. I think we were smarter back then than maybe we give ourselves credit for. Like this thread.
Dick
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Hmmm....I agree Dick. Otherwise we woulnd't be here ;D..........bob
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Another possibility for the use of rodent tissues to fasten points is the use of tail tendons. Anyone who has skinned trapped critters with long tails has seen the long white tendons that run from the root of the tail to the tip. These are pure collagen and can be pulled with pliers and you have long thin sinew perfect for lashing small projects. Could very well be gut; I am just mentioning another possibility. There is a lot more gut than tail sinew.
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thanksk for that inco pierce. We may do some experimental work with tail versus gut