A core is a larger piece of stone from which many smaller flakes are removed. These flakes are then turned into tools or are utilized as they are. There are many different types of cores, but a common way to describe them is by the direction(s) flakes were removed, or by the shape of the core. For example, unidirectional cores have flakes removed all in the same direction. That has had many stone flakes removed to make other tools.
Obsidian is commonly known as volcanic glass. It forms when a volcano erupts and the lava is cooled extremely quickly, such as when it flows into a water body. In Alberta obsidian is considered to be an “exotic material” because it does not occur here naturally. When we find it here it tells us that people in the past engaged in long distance trade, usually with people in British Columbia or the Yukon. In 2016 Teresa found this lovely obsidian flake at site FaPr-6 located near the community of Caroline.
Debitage, or flakes, are bits of stone chips that are left behind while making or modifying a stone tool. This artifact type has distinctive features that make them easily recognizable to archaeologists and clearly distinguish them from naturally occurring broken rocks.
This is a tool used to peel away unwanted matter from an object. It was often used to prepare animal hides and would have been attached to a handle made from either wood, bone or antler. There are different types of scrapers in Alberta including sidescrapers, endscrapers, and thumbnail scrapers. Scrapers are one of the most common types of formed tools we find in Alberta. Pictured here is an endscraper that we collected during the summer of 2017.
This little guy is a wedge, or sometime as it is sometimes known as its french name, pieces esquilles. These tools are thought to have been used to split organic materials like wood and bone, much like an ancient stone chisel. One of the sharp sides of the wedge would be placed against the material that you wanted to split, and you would hammer the other end with a stone to drive the wedge through it. Since this little tool would literally be caught between a rock and a hard place, using a wedge would often create bipolar flake scars. You will also often see crushing and lots of hinge fractures on the tops and bottoms of these tools, where the edges are being crushed against the hammerstone and the material being split. As a result, wedges often have a short and squat rectangular body shape.
This particular specimen is made from a very coarse grained quartzite. Based on the reddish hue of the stone, it may have even been heat treated to improve the quality of the material. It was found near Wabasca-Desmarais, on a high ridge that overlooked a broad stream valley.
This week we feature an artifact that was found on a farm near Canora, Saskatchewan. A friend of mine sent the pictures of artifact that her father’s uncle found in a field during the mid-20th century. The artifact is known as a maul which is a large stone with a groove that would be used to haft a handle onto the stone. There were two types of mauls: a heavier one with a short handle and a smaller one with a longer and more limber handle. The heavier one was used as by women for many purposes such as: driving in tent pins, killing disabled animals, breaking up bones for marrow, pounding chokecherries, and pounding dried meat to make pemmican. The smaller one would have been used as a war club by men.
This maul was found out of context but even when found in situ mauls are difficult to date. They were often re-used by people who found them at old campsites and could have be used over thousands of years. For information about recent residue analysis on mauls found throughout Alberta read “More than meat: Residue analysis results of mauls in Alberta” by Kristine Fedyniak and Karen L. Giering in the most recent Blue Book: Back on the Horse: Recent Developments in Archaeological and Palaeontological Research in Alberta, Occasional Paper No. 36 (2016).
An expedient tool is an object that can be made quickly and easily with little or no production effort. This is a retouched flake we collected during the summer of 2016. The red arrow is pointing to where the flake has been retouched.