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Experimental archaeology, engagement, fragmentation and enchainment

November 28, 2022 / admin / 0 Comments

I have recently been reading about the work of archaeologist, John Chapman, and his ideas around fragmentation and enchainment. I have also been thinking about the role of experimental archaeology, not just for exploring past processes, but also the formation of relationships in the present.

Certainly working together on the process of learning how to make a stone tool can be a bonding experience, especially when the process is stretched out over three years and leads to other projects and activities. Enter Laura and Jordan.

Upon reaching the end of their third year of undergraduate degree it felt appropriate for me to recognise in some way all the help, but also all the experiences we shared through their degree journey. These included workshops, fieldwork, surveying, filming, conservation as well as lots of coffee drinking. I have really enjoyed developing projects along with them both.

A good while ago I gave a friend, Lucette, a glass arrowhead as a birthday present. Her partner Martin transformed it into a lovely necklace / pendant, and after she sent me a photo of it I asked Martin if he could make me a couple.

As you can see, Martin came up with the goods, and both Laura and Jordan appreciated their pendants. As third years I thought I would be seeing a lot less of them once they had finished their degrees, however that has not been the case. Jordan is working on a temporary conservation project for the department, and Laura has started a Masters degree in Museum Studies on the floor below me.

The fragmentation process within John Chapman’s discussion refers largely to Neolithic pottery sherds, and how the breaking up of a pot can provide fragments that can link people to other people, but also places and events. The knapping process is also a process of fragmentation, and the gifting of these two particular arrowhead pendants (one from a bottle glass and one from flint) does seem to have enchained both Laura and Jordan to the department, so it must be true!

Using experimental archaeology as a process to learn from each other

October 13, 2022 / admin / 0 Comments

This week we had an experimental session with second-year ‘Themes’ students in Chester making some clay Palaeolithic Dolni Vestonice ‘venus’ figurines (and associated wolverines and bears). Nacho came over with me from Manchester and the topic we used the making process to explore was that of Personhood. How we as modern westerners understand the category, but also thinking about how people in the Palaeolithic past may have done so. And a number of interesting ideas emerged.

A 2017 scan (see link below) of the ‘venus’ revealed that it had been made from one piece of material, as opposed to having bits stuck on to create the arms, legs, breasts etc. This was something Paul Thomas talked about in a previous workshop and demonstrated how squeezing the clay brought out particular shapes that could then be ‘pulled’ into shape. This contrasted to the approach many of the students initially took this week, adding clay to the models to build them up. I think it is fair to say that everybody (including Nacho) had difficulties creating a model ‘venus’ that was correct in size and form. However, after initial difficulties, and once people had got a feel for the materials a menagerie of animals emerged. This cat for example seems to have started out as a wolverine or bear, but then morphed into a cat. People seemed to find it much easier to create a shape from the clay that corresponded with an animal they knew, rather than emulate photographs of the originals. As Nacho pointed out, that is exactly what people in the past were doing, and so in many ways figurines like the cat below are more representative of the original process than a super accurate wolverine or bear replica.

In relation to the ‘venus’ we asked people to draw the figurine first, as a way of seeing the key elements before embarking upon the making process. In the discussion section at the end Elowyn said that she didn’t see herself in the figurine, and felt as though it was referencing an older female form. Jacob suggested it represented a woman’s body after having gone through the process of childbirth, and we all agreed that the lack of facial detail meant it wasn’t an individual portrait but representing a category of women. This was interesting from the personhood perspective because it suggests Palaeolithic womanhood comprised different facets perhaps organised around age bands and the process of childbirth.

It was also interesting that towards the end of the session Elowyn made Victoria a present of a miniature bear, and then gifted it to her. This allowed us to think about the potential of the original ‘venus’ having been a gift, and about what possible qualities may also have been given along with the figurine? We had discussed the Soffer (et al. 1993) paper arguing that the figurines may have been deliberately exploded during the firing process for divination purposes. Developing the ideas of Soffer (et al. 1993: 39) we thought about whether the gifting of the figurine could have been intended to ensure safe childbirth?

For me, the key idea that emerged from the session was again about the making process and its relationship with the human hand. Squeezing the material allows certain shapes to emerge and these shapes may resemble recognisable animals or person categories. This general similarity can then be developed by literally pulling the material into shape. That the the creation is then fired and potentially exploded provides a really interesting blend of dramatic creation and destruction narratives. And so, far from Nacho and myself ‘delivering knowledge’, it was very much the making and sharing of ideas part of the session that resulted in it being so interesting and enjoyable.

And at this point it is probably apposite to introduce my own personal favourite, Owain’s cheeky bear, and thank Nacho for facilitating the making process and Jacob for being official photographer on the day.

Papers

Soffer, O., Vandiver, P., Oliva, M., and Seitl, L. 1993. Case of the exploding figurines. Archaeology Vol.46(1) pp.36-39.

Links

https://bradshawfoundation.com/news/archaeology.php?id=Forensic-analysis-of-the-Dolni-Vestonice-figurine

On holiday

September 15, 2022 / admin / 0 Comments

Currently we are on a mini two week tour of southern Spain. A first highlight was the Archaeology Museum in Jerez.

And yesterday, an exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Creation in Cordoba

However, most interesting was a small ceramics workshop in the centre of Cordoba. In there I bought for seven euros a small melted glass bottle.

I also had a good chat with the woman who made it, and she did her best to explain to me the necessary kiln timings for a successful glass melt.

Going to southern Spain was a last minute thing for me. I have tagged along with Karen and Roxanna, to make sure we get to spend some nice time together this summer. However, I have really been struck by how stimulating getting away, but also engaging with new places can be.

I am really excited about making some large bevelled glass slabs, that I can then use to knap some bigger handaxes of colour. I am super busy when I get back, but a visit to the bottle tip, and a session with Nacho and his kiln are now high on my agenda!

Thanks to Brosky and Maria for making us super welcome and spending their time showing us around Cordoba. We are so lucky to have good friends in great places.

On hitting things

August 9, 2022 / admin / 0 Comments

My understanding of how to hit things has developed not through flintknapping but martial arts. Consequently, this also influences how I teach other people as I find the principles to be transferable. The first issue is cultural, that generally we are taught that hitting is a bad thing, and so we don’t get that much practice. A first step then is to just get people used to hitting flint with a hammerstone and I have previously done a whole two hour session at Chester on just that.

I then move on to a discussion of impact, or kinetic energy. My understanding is quite processual, in that kinetic energy is a result of the relationship between the mass of an object (hammerstone) and the speed it is travelling upon impact. Whilst the mass of your selected hammerstone will be constant, one variable we can play with is speed at impact. If we remove angles and accuracy from this discussion, a high impact speed increases the kinetic energy, and this in turn increases the chances of getting a clean flake removal. To increase the speed of the hammerstone it is necessary to have a relaxed arm, and relaxation comes from a familiarity with the hitting process (see paragraph one). So far, so good.

Anyway, I was at home and most of my knapping gear is at work and I was feeling a little bit stressed and saw a nice tabular piece of material in the back yard. I am 99.9% sure I picked it up at the Mynydd Rhiw site earlier this year, but my problem was that I only had a very large and very small hammerstone to hand, and a small antler hammer that I usually use on glass. None of the tools were ideal but I wanted to have a go, and if my above theoretical understanding was correct, I should be able to adapt my speed of hitting to compensate for the overly large or overly small size of the tools being used.

So that is what I did. The large hammerstone was good for the first stage of cortical removals. As you can see, each of these pieces has between 80% and 100% of cortex on the dorsal face.

The next stage was a little more tricky, as I could have done with a slightly smaller hammerstone and larger antler hammer for the shaping and thinning process. As you can see, these pieces are characterised by around 50% cortical surface and they are generally smaller.

With the final stage I really had to hit the material hard with the small antler hammer. A bigger one would have worked better, but my approach succeeded and I did manage to get some nice soft hammer flakes off. As you can see, these are characterised by minimal cortical surface present.

Anyway, if the material was indeed from Mynydd Rhiw I should have made a Neolithic polished stone axe, but being me it became a small flat based cordate handaxe. This is technically incorrect because the material was originally quarried even though I picked it up from the surface. At one point it had a large step on one surface, which I removed by replacing a removal and using that as a punch to get rid, and it worked really well.

The speed thing does work, but it is hard work, and the intuitive way I normally select the appropriate tool does save me energy. There is more to hitting than this, I deliberately avoided a lengthy discussion of angles and accuracy, however this post does go some way towards exploring and explaining (my understanding of) the underlying complexity of what is generally perceived to be a simple process.

Dorstone fieldwork pop up slag glass knapping session

August 1, 2022 / admin / 0 Comments

On our Herefordshire fieldwork project we camp on the local Dorstone village playing fields behind which runs an old straight track. On a dog walk last year I noticed a section that had some inclusions with conchoidal fractures.

I stored this in my memory bank, and this year ended up going on a super impromptu walk with a group of students interested in lithics. The aim was to introduce them to the art of finding knappable materials in the landscape (something I am getting good at).

Anyway, as well as an opportunity to all get to know each other a little better, it turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable material locating and testing exercise.

I told Tim Hoverd, Herefordshire County archaeologist, about our adventure and he pointed out that this particular old straight track used to be a railway line, hence the glass slag that we were finding. I wanted to end this post with some kind of witty Alfred Watkins reference. However, I have now ended up reading about the Golden Valley Railway on Wikipedia. C’est la guerre.

Neolithic Fieldwork

July 30, 2022 / admin / 0 Comments

I have been away for the whole of July on fieldwork in Herefordshire, and one element was the excavation of a scheduled ancient monument, Arthur’s Stone. Associated with this was an outreach project designed to engage locals with the excavation. Enter Martin Lewis.

Martin used to farm in the local area and when he heard we were up at Arthur’s Stone he brought this massive Neolithic axe up to show us. It was found by him in 1984 during a potato harvest, and only three fields away from where we were currently working.

Its main attribute was size, being flaked and patinated but not really polished. However, in areas with what looked like recent chips the material looked familiar, and it wasn’t flint. It reminded me of the material from the ‘axe factory’ that I visited in the Llyn Peninsula earlier this year.

Indeed, Martin brought up a report about the find which stated that the material was from South Wales, and it also suggested that what I read as recent chips were in fact original flake removals. I am not sure why they would say that as it makes no sense to me. I would say it was produced, it patinated, and more recent accidental chipping, perhaps by the potato harvesting machine has revealed the original material. That is my reading and it would be interesting to know why the authors thought differently however they presented no further explanation.

What is interesting to me though is that although I couldn’t tell you the kind of stone it was made from, I could tell straight away the approximate geographical area that the stone had come from. I think this aspect may well have been another important attribute of this object during the Neolithic.

Neolithic ‘axe factory’

May 18, 2022 / admin / 0 Comments

Today we made a visit to a Neolithic ‘axe factory’. I say we, Karen and Roxanna stayed in the car whilst I went for a wander. The term ‘axe factory’ is embedded in an economic view of the past and the subject of one of my favourite lectures at Chester: Stone Age Economics.

Anyway, once out of the car I followed the obvious path up to a distinct pile of rocks on a small summit. It was some kind of collapsed structure, but the stone it was made from clearly wasn’t knappable. However, the summit gave me a good view of the area I had crossed, and I knew from previously looking at a 1:25 scale map approximately where the ‘factory’ was located. It was lower down, within spitting distance of the car park.

The ‘factory’ was found in the 1950s after a fire, and comprised a series of pits with surrounding lithic scatters. A knappable volcanic material outcropped in certain places, and the pits were the result of Neolithic people digging down to get at the seams below the surface.

Whilst getting pretty close to the car park I saw a sunken feature filled with foliage and surrounded by some interesting looking fragments. The material looked knappable and it appeared to be debitage, what is known as ‘shatter’. Shatter has no obvious evidence of human modification, such as a bulb of percussion, but forms a significant component of any reduction process. These pieces were very well preserved for surface finds. Or they are not very old.

These three large pieces were at a different pit, but show the material more clearly. The thing to note is the outer cortex and it’s thickness on these flakes. Anyway, the star of the show, and the one I brought away with me is this large piece below.

The above image shows the inner gray fine grained volcanic material on the left, in contrast to its outer cortex on the right. So far, so good. The following image shows part of the outer face, and on it what I think is a flake scar from a hard hammer removal.

This suggests that the outer surface is not homogeneous, but the thickest cortical part formed in Geological time. Presumably this piece was then quarried during the Neolithic and the aforementioned flake removed, perhaps to test the quality. The piece was apparently then abandoned. If this did occur during the Early Neolithic it would have been perhaps 5000 years ago. Long enough for a patina, or new surface to develop over the flake scar.

So I am arguing three phases: an original geological cortex; then a flake removed in the Neolithic and over 5000 years a patina formed over that flake scar; finally, a historical period removal revealing the grey inner surface.

Because I believe this is a humanly modified piece I need to register it with the local Finds Liaison Officer and let them decide. Tomorrow I need to find a museum!

Update. I didn’t find a local museum so I will contact the National Museum of Wales to see what they think…

Bottle tip ovate handaxe

March 28, 2022 / admin / 0 Comments

This afternoon Roxanna, Bella and myself went to the bottle tip. I thought from the style of the earliest bottles it was 1940s material and this newspaper from the site indicates late 1930s.

I was looking for big pieces and at first thought this was a metal pan lid. It was very concave and so needed considerable reduction to get it flat, but apart from a couple of irritating step fractures the glass behaved really well.

I took a few risks with this, but well prepared platforms and well behaved material led to this nice and lumpy but symmetrical ovate. Roxanna is not as keen on the bottle tip as me so we went to a cafe afterwards, to have some daddy daughter time…on our phones 😐

Quarried materials?

March 24, 2022 / admin / 0 Comments

I mentioned in the last post how this very knappable material was not present in the museum lithic collections or associated text books for the area of Tuscany we were staying in.

I really enjoyed collecting these materials, and they were mostly eroding from a low wall that ran along the path to the house. I have realised subsequently that in fact all the pieces I picked up were from humanly produced structures.

Quarrying for materials is generally accepted to be part of the Early Neolithic, and in Britain some of the earliest monuments are flint mines. The Radiolarite (if that is what it is) may not have been easily available, or available at all to the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic populations using the area if it in fact comes from a deep stratigraphic context.

So my materials collection experience, whilst useful for getting to know the Radiolarite and its properties, was very much a post prehistoric experience, and actually more similar to my visits to the bottle tip. Those are my thoughts from the experience and evidence to date. Looks like I will have to come back to Tuscany if I want to categorically find out….

Arezzo, Tuscany and lots of knappable material

March 22, 2022 / admin / 0 Comments

We are staying with a friend, David, in their Tuscan farmhouse villa, and the place is literally surrounded by this amazing knappable material.

It’s interesting as it seems to break up into tabular form, but also has linear inclusions running through it, perpendicular to the tabular planes. In the above photo you can see how the flakes stop as they run into the inclusion line.

The inclusion line is perhaps more obvious on the other face. A quick Wikipedia search suggests it is Radiolarite chert, and a visit to the local museum gives the impression that stone tools found in the area were made from an imported flint, not this material.

Anyway, I am bringing the first two artefacts home, the rest are for David, our host, and his neighbours who made the mistake of expressing an interest in what I was doing.

What a lovely week, spent with David, Chrissy, Penny, Karen, and my new friend, Radiolarite chert.

Learning Through Making