Groswater Palaeoeskimo Lithic Artifacts

In this colour plate, take the bluish tinge in the quartz microblades (A,B) with a grain of salt.  They are actually clear, but  they were photographed against a blue background which I removed and replace with plain white in photoshop.  Its misleading in the colour image, but in the black and white version of this plate that will appear in publication, its not an issue.  (A,B) stemmed quartz microblades, (C) chert micorblade core, (D,E,F) Chert microblades, (G) Distal end of a biface, which is probably from an asymmetric knife, (H-L) Stemmed and notched biface bases, (M) sideblade, (N) Asymmetric knife, (O) biface, that may be an endblade, although its is thinned at the base similar to knives, (P-S) Endscrapers - the top one (P) has slight ears, but most of the scrapers found at the site were small and traingular in outline.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Groswater Palaeoeskimo Endblades

Sample of Groswater Palaeoeskimo endblades from the Peat Garden site in Bird Cove on Newfoundland's northern peninsula.  In each pair, the dorsal surface is on the left and the ventral surface is on the right.  These have a "plano-convex" or D-shaped cross section, so the dorsal surface is convex and the ventral surface is flat.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Plans and Profiles: Latonia Hartery Researching Plant Remains at Palaeoeskimo Sites

Latonia Hartery, in a snowstorm,
 80 degrees north at Fort Conger,
 Ellesmere Island.

Latonia Hartery is an archaeologist from Newfoundland, who completed an MA and PhD at the University of Calgary, before returning to Memorial University of Newfoundland to work on a Post-Doc.  I've known Latonia and had the opportunity to work with her off and on for the past fifteen years.  She keeps an exhausting schedule and when she's not researching microscopic plant residues on Palaeoeskimo artifacts, she's leading tours of archaeological sites in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic, travelling, writing, and producing documentaries.  Her research into plant stones and starches was just beginning as our time working together on Newfoundland's northern peninsula drew to a close, so I asked her about where that line of inquiry has taken her...

Plans and Profiles #17: Latonia Hartery, Microscopic Plant Remains from Palaeoeskimo Sites and Artifacts 

1) Tell me a little bit about your project.

Well, let’s see. Generally speaking, and since 1998, I have been working in Bird Cove-Plum Point, on Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula. There are 36 archaeological sites in the area that date from about 5000 years ago to the historic period. I have worked with a number of wonderful scholars namely David Reader, Stephen Hull, Miki Lee and of course, you. It’s one of the biggest joys of my life, working with that community. It’s also the place where I collected my PhD data, at a Dorset Paleoeskimo site called Peat Garden North. Recently, I have taken a break from research there to edit/work on a book which summarizes the results from the main sites excavated so far. I’m nearing the end now. Thank heavens!

More specifically, I am SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellow at Memorial University, searching for microscopic phytoliths and starch on Paleoeskimo stone tools and in soil samples. Mike Deal is my supervisor. Both phytoliths and starch have unique shapes and features, particular to species, that help us identify which plant they belong to.

Town of Bird Cove looking west. (Photo: Dennis Minty)

2) How did you become interested in this particular problem?

Corn starch grain (photo: Brian Kooyman)

I first began investigating phytoliths and starch at Peat Garden North (PGN). It’s a special site, in the sense that it has multiple lines of evidence indicating it was occupied in the late spring and summer. It has two lightly constructed houses, a shellfish midden (scallops and mussels), and more migratory bird remains than seal (about 63% birds). We don’t have a lot of data here in Newfoundland for this time of year. After testing PGN soil for macrobotanical plant remains, the results were nil, except for a couple of raspberry seeds, and spruce needles. It didn’t make sense, however, that there were no plant remains, given the warm season of occupation. I was doing my PhD at the University of Calgary, where people were working on phytoliths and starch research for sites associated with agricultural/complex societies. I thought it might be a long shot to use this mode of inquiry for Arctic hunter-gatherers, but it worked out in the end. By testing soils, and residues on the edges of stone tools, I was able to determine that the people who lived there used at least 26 species of plants. That’s a big jump from two.


3) Has your project changed since you originally began working on it? How?

Potato Starch Grain (Photo: Brian Kooyman)

It’s changed quite a bit - it is no longer site specific. I am now testing other Paleoeskimo sites in Bird Cove. I’m also attempting to make cross-cultural and geographic comparisons/observations about plant use. For example, I recently went to Copenhagen to work with Bjarne Grønnow and Jens Fog Jensen on two Greenland collections. I’m also working with Priscilla Renouf and her team to test artifacts and soils from Phillip’s Garden, and will experiment with Paleoeskimo sites from the Arctic Archipelago. I am currently working with Mike and Vaughan Grimes to extract calculus from teeth of a British Naval Cemetery population dated to 1725-1825. Because hygiene was different in the past, phytoliths and starch were often trapped in calculus deposits. We have found lots of starch, much of which seems to be potato, and I am sure this surprises no one. But, the important thing is we know our method works because in a month, we will sample calculus from Dorset Paleoeskimo teeth as well. We’re also working together to test the interior of Woodland Period ceramic pots from Nova Scotia. So as you can see, phytolith and starch studies have a wide application. My favourite studies have been about a) phytoliths from dinosaur coprolites in India, which help determine their habitat and diet, b) starch grains from the calculus on Neanderthal teeth to show they were consuming wheat, barley, legumes, and date palm fruit, and c) phytoliths from 4000 year old noodles in Laijia, China which showed they were made from millet. Unbelievable!


4) If you could ask the people who lived at your site(s) one question what would it be?

The chert bear from Peat Garden North
(Photo: Latonia Hartery)

I’d probably ask so much at once, it would come out as a garbled mess. I think that while there is much to learn, we’ve made some pretty good in-roads on things like settlement, subsistence and site locations. So, I’d likely ask something related to ideology and art. At Peat Garden North, we once found a polar bear in an outstretched-flying shape, flintknapped in chert. I’d love to ask the maker why it was made, and what does it mean, or perhaps a question about why art is created in general. These are simple questions, but the answers I am sure, much more complicated.


5) Was there something that you believed or expected to be true at the start of this research that you’ve since disproven?

I guess it’s that plants were more important to Paleoeskimo people, and Arctic people in general, than we realize. While they may not make up as much of the diet as sea mammals, they were still consumed, provided much-needed nutrients, and had many uses such as for baskets, floor coverings (they used grass at Peat Garden North for this purpose), clothing, fuel, tools - the list goes on. In many early ethnographies, and 5th Thule monographs for example, observations on plant use were rarely reported. So, I suppose we haven’t been as inclined to study it archaeologically. But when you dig deeper, develop ways to research it, and pose the questions, a new world of information opens up.


6) If you had to pick one artifact or feature that encapsulates your research what would it be? Can you describe it?

Great question. It’s a little soapstone pot you and I found at Peat Garden North. Not more than the size of the palm of your hand, it was located in the middle of a house, on an axial passage. It was stained on the inside, from what we assumed must simply be oil, since the vessel was likely a lamp or pot. However, once I tested the interior of the pot for starch and phytoliths, a number of different, extremely large starch grains belonging to the roots of several plant species, were recovered. It’s not moss, certainly, because moss doesn’t contain starch. It was eye-opening in terms of understanding its function, and I have recently sampled residues from a pot at Phillip’s Garden to see if it contains multiple plant species also. So at the end of the day, the vessel and its contents are metaphorical for the research I’m doing in general, because I first thought something that was a standard way of thinking, which was eventually disproven.

Soapstone pot from Peat Garden North, and an example of some of the starch grains found inside. Top Right is starch grain, Left is cross polarized image of the starch showing birefringence. (Photo: Latonia Hartery)

7) How do you unwind when you need to get away from your research?

When I’m not doing research, I’m usually making documentaries or fictional films. In the past few years, I’ve made a few short films, as well as written and directed a couple of documentaries for the CBC called The Last Sardine Outpost and Rum Running. I’ve also production managed 8 documentaries for that broadcaster. It’s not exactly resting, but it’s pretty incredible what a change in activities can do. I like watching movies as well, especially foreign films, The Lives of Others – A German film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. I don’t watch lots of TV but I did watch Vikings on HBO. It wasn’t bad! The opening credit sequence and music is quite good, that’s reason enough to watch it.


8) There’s a lot of travelling and writing in archaeology. Any tips in either category?

Latonia and Aaju Peter (Inuit Lawyer, Designer, Singer, 

Sealing Activist) singing “Return of the Sun” song on 

top of a fjord (Photo: Dennis Minty)

I’ll take the travelling one. In the past two years alone, for Arctic research and for filmmaking, I travelled almost 450 000km. Don’t rely on these to save your life, but just to up the joy factor of your trip. 1) Only take what you need. Nothing worse than lugging around a bunch of things you never end up using. Sometimes I pack, then force myself to get rid of 30-40% of it. 2) Where ever you go, take a few minutes to learn words in that language such as hello, thank you, I am XYZ, you’re country is nice, the beer here is tasty - anything really. Once people realize you have made this effort, a bond is automatically formed. 3) Lots of places I go are cold, so I try to find out how local people keep warm, and then I do the same. While, I have some ‘high tech’ gear, I have hand-made parkas, seal-skin boots and mitts, and even made myself an amauti. It’s a bit of work to get/make but I don’t remember the last time I was cold in the north. But do remember having to share my clothes with people dressed in gortex, etc 4) Bring small gifts for people. Bring them for people you know, and for people you haven’t even met yet. Chances are, someone, somewhere, will do something nice for you along the way 5) Here’s my fave, learn a song from your home, something with a fast tune. Music is universal and makes everyone’s life better. It’s side-splitting to be in a place where you can’t speak the same language, but can sing a song with gusto while people laugh/listen and try to join in. I taught a few Greenlanders in Sisimiut how to sing I’se the B’y once -then promptly found myself in their house eating halibut and drinking tea.


9) What books or websites would you recommend if people want to learn more about your area of interest in general? Or your project in particular? 

Yes, well Elfshot and Steve Hull’s are among the best, but I suspect your readers know those already. Here’s the site for my non-profit org (www.aminainc.org), and the Bird Cove area (www.bigdroke.ca). Superstar phytolith and starch researcher Delores Piperno has a home page and a link to all her stellar publications here: http://anthropology.si.edu/archaeobio/piperno.html.

For books, try Ancient Starch Research, edited by Torrence and Barton, and Phytoliths: A Comprehensive Guide for Archaeologists and Paleoecologists by Piperno. Some of my early results are in the Bar Series 2006 with Rankin and Ramsden as editors, and there is my PhD, but a shortened form of those results will appear in our book soon.

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Would you like to see your work profiled here? Or perhaps that of a student or colleague?  Send me a note, I'd love to hear from you: elfshot.tim@gmail.com

Photo Credits: 

As indicated in the photo captions.
Plans and Profiles Banner, Tim Rast based on a linocut by Lori White

Groswater Palaeoeskimo Artifacts from Peat Garden, Bird Cove, Newfoundland

Groswater Palaeoeskimo Harpoon heads from
Peat Garden at Bird Cove, Newfoundland

More than a decade ago, I co-directed an archaeology project for a couple seasons with Latonia Hartery at Bird Cove on Newfoundland's northern peninsula.  Today, I'm working on some artifact plates for a paper on one of the Groswater Palaeoeskimo sites from that project.  The publication is going to be black and white, but I like the look of the colour plates before converting them to greyscale as well, so I figured I'd pop a few up on the blog.

A) Sandstone abrader - the sort of thing used to grind the edge and faces of burin-like tools and side scrapers at the site. B) Knapped blank, ready for grinding.  What happened here?  Its perfect and big and the left it behind. C,D) Chipped and ground burin-like tools.  E,F) Chipped and ground side-scrapers.  Why are the ground facets white on the burin-like tools, but not on the side-scrapers?

Asymmetric Knives.  They start out asymmetical and that asymmetry grows as they are used and resharpened.  At Peat Garden, the Groswater Palaeoeskimo people like to finish their bifaces with stems and shallow notches for hafting.

This is the greyscale version of the colour photo at the top of the post.  The larger harpoon head (A) is nearly complete.  Its made on some sort of marine mammal bone, is self-bladed and has an open socket.  There is some damage around the base, but it appears to have terminated in a single, central spur, which is a little unusual for the Groswater harpoon heads found in the province. The smaller barbed harpoon tip (B) is made from ivory and its broken above the line hole.  The outside edge has a partial slot for a small side-blade.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Groswater Had Style, Patience

Skilled knappers

This morning I was reviewing and photographing some of the Groswater Palaeoeskimo collections from Bird Cove at The Rooms.  When it came to toolmaking, Palaeoeskimos in general were a pretty stylish bunch and the Groswater in particular were meticulous craftspeople.  These were the folks who left the carefully made harpoon shaft in the bog at L'Anse aux Meadows almost 3,000 years ago and over 1,000 years later they were still making their jewel-like tools at Bird Cove and other sites around Newfoundland.

Fine grained, colourful endblades

One of the papers that I'm working on this fall is about the very late Groswater Palaeoeskimo occupation at a Bird Cove site called Peat Garden.  Latonia Hartery and I excavated there for several years a decade ago.  The article that we're working on will be describing the Groswater component, focusing on the very late radiocarbon dates from the site, which extends the Groswater Palaeoeskimo occupation in Newfoundland by perhaps 150 or 200 years, to as late as 1750 BP.

Self-bladed, open socket Groswater Palaeoeskimo Harpoon Head from Peat Garden

We found dozens of these little scrapers

Its been a long time since I viewed the Bird Cove material and I had a fascinating visit with the artifacts this morning.  The artifacts haven't changed in the past 10 years, but I definitely see them differently now.  On the one hand, they are very familiar.  I was working at Bird Cove at the same time that I was getting Elfshot off the ground, so I used a lot of the artifacts that we were finding as the source material for many of the reproductions and jewelry that I've been making ever since.  On the other hand, I've worked on a lot more sites and with other collections since then, so the little quirks in the collection that make it unique pop out a bit more now.  In my opinion, its hard to find a dull Groswater site, but hopefully the those little quirks in the Peat Garden material, combined with the very late dates, will make an especially interesting paper. 

The square block is an abrading stone

One of the traits that shows up at Groswater Palaeoeskimo sites is grinding on knapped chert tools.  Blanks were initially knapped and then ground flat with small hand held abrading stones.  At Peat Garden, grinding is used exclusively on burin-like tools and side knives/side scrapers, but elsewhere its used on other sorts of tools, like endblades and knives to prepare a surface for a final perfect series of parallel pressure flakes.  Its a trick that modern flintknappers still use called "flake over grinding" or FOG knapping to create a perfect jewel-like finish on a knapped point.  It takes time today to grind a blank smooth and flat using diamond abrading wheels, imagine the hours that Groswater knappers spend grinding away by hand with their sandstone abraders.

At Peat Garden, the Groswater Palaeoeskimo knappers continued to grind and knap their BLTs and Side-scrapers throughout the life of the tool.  Look at the little burin-like tool on the far right in the photo below - see how the the top is ground thinner than the base - that's because it continued to be ground and resharpened while it was hafted in the handle.

Peat Garden Artifacts: A sequence of Groswater Palaeoeskimo burin-like tools, from a complete un-ground blank on the left through to a tiny, used up nubbin on the right.  The white patches are areas that have been ground flat.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Maritime Archaic Morning

Steve, plaiding up the place

I spent this morning down at The Rooms going through boxes and boxes of Maritime Archaic Indian artifacts with my friend Steve.  Steve and I are two of the four authors working on a publication based on the Big Droke and Caines sites at Bird Cove.  Since we are the only two living in the Province and therefore have easy access to the collections, we got to go down and rummage through the boxes and get re-acquainted with the material.

Woodworking Tools

It was interesting going through the boxes.  Its been so long since either of us thought about the material it was like re-excavating the sites all over again.  We were both a lot younger when we worked on the sites, so it was nice to see that they lived up to our memories.  Big Droke is a large site and has some of the best evidence for Maritime Archaic Indian day-to-day activity between 4500 and 3400 years ago.  Chert and slate tools were being made on the site and there are several big heavy woodworking tools that show lots of signs of use. 

Rough bifaces from the caches

The Caines site is located a stones throw away from Big Droke and was used for a century or two at the end of the occupation.  Compared to Big Droke, it seems to have been a more specialized workshop site.  There was a more dedicated focus on roughly manufacturing early stage bifaces and there were even a couple of biface caches in a large hearth feature, which suggest that stone was being intentionally heat treated to improve its properties.

A finished projectile point from the Caines Site

A retouched ramah flake

Steve and I wanted to have photos for ourselves and to share with David and Latonia (co-authors living outside of the Province) while we all work on the paper.  Taking photos of the artifacts gave me an excuse to use my brand new photo scales.  Lori gave me a set of photo scales from Crime Sciences Inc for my Birthday.  I've got a whole bag full of scales in different sizes and colours to play around with now.  I love them!  We had some in the field this summer and they worked great on site and they're just as handy in the lab.  No more little paper cut out scales for me.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

My Favourite Dartboard

I'm going out to play darts with a bunch of friends this afternoon. I'm especially looking forward to it today because a friend of mine from Texas is in town and I haven't seen him in years. In 2002, I worked for Chris while he was doing his MA fieldwork in Labrador. He was excavating at archaeological sites at Snack Cove near Cartwright, Labrador.

It was an important year for me. From 1999 to 2001 I was involved with a large community archaeology project at Bird Cove on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula. It was my first big archaeology job coming out of grad school -- I was initially a crew chief and then one of two project co-directors. Days before we were supposed to go into the field for the 2002 field season we learned that we wouldn't be getting our ACOA funding for the year. Basically, I was out of a job.

I had started Elfshot in 1997 and while Bird Cove kept me busy from the spring to the fall, there was still a downtime in January-March that Elfshot fit into nicely. By 2002 I knew that I was turning down Elfshot jobs and that I might be able to expand the business beyond those 3 months, but I had no idea if there would be enough demand to fill up 12 months of the year.

When Chris' Snack Cove project came up I jumped at the opportunity to work in Labrador and the remote location and small crew meant plenty of time to ponder the future. We played a lot of darts. I'm in the habit of taking darts into the field with me, but we didn't have a dartboard. We stayed in an old wooden cabin with a few run down fishing stages around it. In one of the buildings I found an old wooden barrel lid and working from memory we turned it into a dartboard. The 8, 14, 15, & 16 were in the wrong places and you had to throw the darts really hard to make them stick, but we got a lot of use out of it.

By the end of the summer I'd decided to give Elfshot a go full time and its kept me steadily employed, contract to contract and order to order, for the past 7 years. I wasn't happy about losing the ACOA funding at the time, but without that shake-up, I wouldn't have gotten the push I needed to make a go of Elfshot as a craft business.

I was at a Craft Council Shop committee meeting yesterday afternoon and one of the things we were discussing was ways to deal with the downturn in the economy. Newfoundland seems to be in a bit of a bubble, the brunt of the recession hasn't really hit us yet, in fact, the shop sales in December 2008 were the highest on record. It was amazing, but we can't expect to stay unaffected forever.

If there is a silver lining to this downturn, I wonder if we will see a surge in new craft producers? It took losing my job for me to make the entrepreneurial leap and go to work for myself fulltime. I'd wager that there are other people who may be going through exactly that same thing right now. Its a scary decision to make, but if it works it can be very liberating. When you are your own boss you can put the numbers on the dart board in any order you choose.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast
Photo Captions:
Top Right, Groswater Palaeoeskimo endblade in situ, Snack Cove, Labrador
Left, A foggy day in Snack Cove. The building in the picture is where I found the barrel lid.
Middle Right, My Favourite Dartboard
Bottom Right, Arctic Cotton, Labrador