Coming Unglued: Testing the Efficiency of Hafting Techniques

Hi all and welcome back!

I just finished about three months in the field where writing up blog posts and firing them off on the interwebs was a bit of a challenge.  But! I was able to have some fun setting up tests and helping out on some really great archaeology.

I have been looking around in the literature from cave sites to see examples of different ways Archaic points were fixed to atlatl darts.  The four main ways evident are:

1) jammed into a hollowed out socket

2) set with an organic resin of one sort or another (even fish head glue in California, see Gifford and Klimek 1939:82)

3) wrapped with animal sinew that dries and tightens

4) a combination of hardened mastic with a wrap of animal sinew or fiber.

Tapered haft and pine pitch glue

           Each of these attachment methods no doubt comes with a specific suite of costs and benefits, some of which naturally overlap with other hafting techniques.  An example of overlapping benefits is that all techniques allow an armed weapon to be projected towards a target.  Unique characteristics, among others, include the cost in time and resources of collecting and processing raw materials.  For the hunter, each method creates a different working relationship between the stone point and wooden shaft.  Imagine not wanting the point to stay attached to the foreshaft after a target is hit.  Perhaps there is a benefit in having the foreshaft detach from the projectile.  If so, a socketed or glued point may actually be the best approach.  Think of close successive shots on game in corrals like we see in the Great Basin.  Perhaps in brushy areas where points get hung up on vegetation, and game may run once hit, a barbed point with pine glue and sinew may be a good way to keep weapons in operating order after a miss or to ensure secure hits that may be easily tracked. 

For an interesting discussion of hafting techniques and the decision between bow and atlatl you’ll enjoy Margaret Nelson’s analysis of food selection and hunting choices used by the Mimbres Valley Salado (Nelson 1986)

           

The Test

The possibility that tightly fixed projectiles might not always be optimal led
me to arm a few darts and check out what the suite of the cost/benefit differences might be with different hafting approaches.  For this test I chose to observe differences in point loss, point breakage and shaft damage between three types of hafting: 1) pine pitch glue 2) pine pitch with goat sinew 3) pine pitch glue with a fiber wrap.  Additionally, I chose to use both conical socketed and carved-post foreshaft types to check out any benefits of one type over another.  Finally, for a few darts I attached the point directly to the mainshaft of the dart with no foreshaft and no reinforcement wrapping.  Hafting element damage as regulated by attachment method is one thing that we rarely see archaeologically. Hopefully this test will illustrate some functional benefits of each technological choice.

Pine pitch, fiber wrap and carved-post foreshaft

Fiber reinforced mainshaft with pine pitch

A Quick Word…

The test provided a few interesting observations that apply to the archaeology of technological choice and environment.  A larger sample with a consistent shot placement machine would allow observation of strict physical differences in point breakage and haft failure.  But isn’t there a human constant to the equation? So as not to brand the results of exploratory tests with strict physical/functional/temporal explanations, we must consider:

1) Stone tool manufacture and use was an active and transformable adaptive strategy. 

2) Manufacture and use fluctuated as dynamic cultural subsystems, which were conditioned by technological choices and maintained or transformed through cultural transmission processes (see Rickless and Cox 1993 for dynamic cultural subsystems).

3) Variability in technological organization exists spatially and temporally, between and within lithic assemblages, as a result of culturally transmitted production and use practices tailored to subsistence resources.

Allowing variable shot placement in an exploratory study like this is one way to see a wider range of possible outcomes.  Strict questions necessitate tight controls.  My reconnaissance, on the other hand, initially welcomed uncontrolled test environments. 

The Results…

            A few patterns came to light.  First and foremost, the fact was reinforced that some type of binding is optimal just below the hafted projectile and also on the mainshaft where the foreshaft is seated.  A fiber or sinew wrap prevents splitting of the shaft upon impact.  Without binding, the base of the seated point turns into a reverse wood splitter and tries to shred the entire assembly.  Using hardwood shafts with an irregular grain may reduce the need for a fiber or sinew wrap. 

This didn't work out all that well.  A fiber or sinew wrap makes all the difference

  

           









Second, nothing too illuminating, but when creating a new point for an old haft, try to thin the point out and test how it sits in the haft prior to final notching.  Late flaking passes to thin out the base after notches have already weakened the projectile may lead to unnecessary point breakage.  There are a few tricks for post-notch basal thinning out there though.

            Next, pine pitch alone is far faster to rearm as opposed to pitch and sinew.  Sinew offers superior staying power and breaks free much less often but requires at least thirty minutes to set properly.  Pine pitch alone was ready to launch after five minutes. A healthy lump of pine pitch would offer minimal preparation cost with favorable outcomes in instances of close successive shots where breakage is likely to occur and projectiles are plentiful.  I lost the majority of points this way; they’re out on the shooting range somewhere. 

            A wad of pine pitch that has been shaped to a low profile and wrapped with sinew is the best combination for not losing points.  This is no huge surprise.  Even when the entire haft broke there was still a line attached to the projectile that I could follow and recover. The goat sinew worked out ok, the segment that I used was a little greasy and didn’t offer the strength that deer backstrap sinew gives. 

           

Broken foreshaft post, at least the fiber wrap did its job

 The Quartzite point attached with pine pitch glue and fiber wrapping turned out to be an absolute workhorse.  While the raw material took more effort to create due to its tough structural nature, the completed weapon powered through brush and finally broke against a telephone pole (the point was fine but the haft slot broke). Darts with fiber or sinew wraps around the projectile point appear to break the actual hafting element more often than glued points.  If you do not have an abundance of hardwood for foreshafts, you may want to consider gluing the points rather than gluing and wrapping to save wood.  Alternatively you could re-groove a new slot each time...but that takes forever on hardened wood.  I wonder how many discarded hafting fragments have been identified in the archaeological record? probably not too many.  A spatial patterning map for fragment types would be a fun thing to look at though.

  

Breakage pattern of a haft with binding

         

point loss and haft damage with no sinew

Perhaps obsidian points with pine pitch alone would be the most efficient use of time in instances where points are plentiful, prey is close by or contained and multiple impacts may require you to constantly glue points to foreshafts.  Longer shots in brushy areas likely come with a higher risk of missed shots and entanglement.  Robust lithic materials with socketed foreshafts and sinew-wrapped pine pitch glue hafts appear to offer an efficient use of one’s extra “gearing up” time in unknown or difficult hunting environments.  As to the carved-post type foreshaft, I’m never trying it again.  Upon breakage the foreshaft post plugs the mainshaft and prevents rapid removal and reuse.  I tried it and it’s a no go for me.                      

One last thing, of four points tested with glue alone, all became detached after the first missed shot.  None of them broke. Instead they flew off end over end to be recovered later.  Alternatively, the sinew wrapped points suffered breakage as a result of reduced ability to break free of the haft upon impact with brush and soil.  There may be something to that; I’ll have to check later.  Could it be that weaker hafting has a proper place in the halls of atlatl glory? 

Reworked obsidian point with sinew

This was the resultant break against a rack of ribs

Thick points with plenty of pine pitch destroy bone and tissue no matter what

My personal favorite of the day: fine-grained quartzite with the works

Happy Hunting!

 References Cited

Gifford, Edward W., and Stanislaus Klimek

            1939    Culture Element Distributions II: Yana. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology Vol. 1(1): 1-222 

Nelson, Margaret C.

            1984    Chipped Stone Analysis: Food Selection and Hunting Behavior.  In Short-Term Sedentism  in the American Soutwest: The Mimbres Valley Salado.  By Ben A. Nelson and Steven A. LeBlanc, pp. 141-176. Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and the University of New Mexico Press.

                

Ricklis, Robert A. and Kim A. Cox

         1993  Examining Lithic Technological Organization as a Dynamic Cultural Subsystem: The Advantages of an Explicitly Spatial Approach. American Antiquity, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 444-461

Ground Stone Workshop

Hi all,

The world of stone tools is of course so much larger than flaked projectile points.  Ground stone artifacts played a major role in processing food, making other tools, jewelry, house construction, warfare and a myriad of other uses.  The other day we were lucky enough to have Jenny Adams come out to the field school to give a ground stone artifact workshop.  Jenny is the author of “Ground stone Analysis: A Technological Approach”.  Her exceptional book details the use of stone tools that were shaped by grinding and pecking and illustrates the methods that archaeologists use to collect meaningful information about these kinds of items.  Here are a few highlights from the workshop!

 

Grinding corn with a mano (hand held grinder) and metate (large U-shaped basin) proved to be quite the task and showed how much effort really went in to creating a meal for hungry families.  These formal items are often found within prehistoric room blocks associated with mealing bins where corn flour was produced and collected.  

The groundstone axes and war clubs were amazing.  The effort to create these tools is astounding to think of.  If it took me an hour to cut through an atlatl blank with a stone saw, imagine the effort expended on the creation of these items!  The size of the artifacts were a little unsettling as well; I would not like to have this coming at me, nope, no thanks.

Stone drills were often used to hollow out pumice or other vesicular volcanic stone to create smoking pipes.  The stone drills performed fantastically and made relatively (as in it still takes a while) quick work of stone pipe bowls. 

The use of tabular stones for grinding small holes on shell for ornamentation was an interesting endeavor that illustrated the time investment locked up in a single necklace. 

The groundstone implement for straightening arrow shafts was also pretty fantastic to see in action.  I would like to have one of these little gadgets for sure.  By passing the arrow shaft back and forth the shaft becomes smoother and straighter, all the better for zipping though the air!

thanks for coming out Jenny!!

A Lesson in Diligence: Making an Atlatl with Stone Tools

Hi all,

undisclosed activities at undisclosed locations 

For the last few weeks I’ve been out in Mule Creek, NM working as staff for the fieldschool run by Archaeology Southwest.  Check out the field school blog here!

I didn’t bring an atlatl along for the project so I decided to make one.  Then of course I had to challenge myself to make it all with stone tools, hasty decision for sure.  Just to be up front with the conclusion to this whole thing…I broke down and did the finishing touches with a metal blade.  I know I know, but hey I made a functional weapon system and used stone tools for 95 percent of the labor so it’s a decent first try.  Next time will be 100 percent stone tool manufacture now that I have the techniques down a little better. 

original blank

Perishable implements: 

tree stump with a split in it

One halved segment of cottonwood limb that Rob Jones (hey bud!) and I had set aside to cure last summer

One Juniper limb segment for a hammer

Antler tines to retouch tools and help reach the stone wedge when it gets to the midpoint of the atlatl blank

Various stone tools:

Quartzite wood splitting wedge

Quartzite drawknife
Basalt drill

Basalt saw

Quartzite saw
Rhyolite saw

indirect antler method

direct hammer

I’ll say it straight up; this thing takes a heck of a lot of time and patience to complete.  But then the balance of value and disapproval one feels toward effort spent is a relative measure, isn’t it?  I chose to saw a piece of wood in half with a rock, someone else might not see the fun in that.  The end result worked out well though and I learned a lot.  I had to figure out a way to thin the atlatl blank in an efficient manner without spending a year whittling the thing with a stone flake.  So I devised a plan to split thin shavings along the grain of the blank with a wood hammer and stone wedge from the interior of the blank towards the rounded outside of the piece. 


I figured the convex outer edge would offer a little extra strength over a simple flat piece of wood but I’d have to test that to find out.           
The wood splitting endeavor actually worked really well.  I was surprised at how fast I was able to reduce the blank into a thinner piece.  The quartzite held up well and needed tweeking and edge sharpening now and then.  Usewear on the splitting tool came in the form of chipping on the working edge and polish on the high points across the ventral and dorsal faces. 

Most of the work came in the form of cutting the blank to size and shaving the contours of the atlatl with the stone drawknife.  One cut took me over an hour to complete and I went through four resharpening events on the basalt saw and two resharpening passes on the quartzite and rhyolite saw before I was able to cleanly snap the unwanted section from the blank.  I was also pretty surprised at the amount of debitage created from making the atlatl.  I will sift the debitage and broken tools to get a better understanding of material usage rates for the next blog post.

After a few retouch events the saw edge became too thick to fit into the cutting groove such that the tool faces were in contact with the wood but the working edge was not.  At that point the tool became useless as a saw and had to be replaced.  Think of the geometric index of reduction (GIR) for hide scrapers but translated to saw tools.  After a certain amount of re-sharpening a tool ceases to perform adequately and is either discarded outright or saved for future reduction and use.  This pattern was cool to see in operation.  Sturdy stone material such as basalt, quartzite or rhyolite is essential for this process as obsidian or chalcedony would break right away.   

Starting a split with the wedge

Ok so the atlatl came together well.  I thinned the piece to so it flexes slightly and drilled a hole with a basalt drill to insert an antler spur.  The antler spur was set into the atlatl with pine pitch glue and seems to work ok so far. I’m sure it will break and need replacing at some point soon. 

The dart is still under construction but all that remains to be completed is fletching with turkey feathers from the ranch next door.  The shaft is made from river willow taken from Mule Creek, the dart point is made from quartzite (unknown sort of local location?) and the point is set into the foreshaft with pine pitch and a fiber wrap.  Oh, and we have yucca cordage for the handle.  Soon this battle station will be fully operational! 

Cheers and happy hunting!   

edge damage and polish from friction on wood 

This quartzite saw was decent but not great, 6 out of 10. It dulled quickly and chipped easily

The quartzite saw seemed to work better as a drawknife rather than a back and forth type saw edge

original basalt saw flake blank

Basalt saw after two additional sharpening passes. Basalt saw won the day

river willow branches for dart shafts

Dart shafts pegged out to cure 

 

I'll show the completed project soon!

Thanks to Danny Beard for the great B&W photo

FAIL Knaping

Hi all,   BLOOPER REEL HERE!!!

atlatl dart for soil abrasion test

I’ve been putting a few test together over the course of the last couple of weeks with varying levels of success.  Most of the tests have ended in broken arrows, split atlatl shafts, squirting blood and shattered projectile points…so I'm pretty pleased.  Since the recent round of tests fell a little flat I’ll lump them together and chat about them all briefly.  Still, I learned a few valuable lessons and have a few ideas for future directions.

split foreshaft and cut sinew from impact on root

The first test was set up to get a better understanding of the shape differences created through point breakage and recycling versus knife dulling and re-sharpening on obsidian artifacts.  As it goes, we rarely encounter stone tools still in the hafting element and as such must infer the use as either a knife, a projectile point or both.  This little test came about as I wondered how many times projectile points needed to be re sharpened due to dulling from soil abrasion or breakage by impact.  This question came up the other day in a conversation about whether an artifact was a knife that had been flaked to re-sharpen it or a large extensively re-shaped point. 

tip damage from impact on tree root

 For a quick (and inconclusive) test I armed a dart with an obsidian point and shot it in to a sandy loam soil until it either shattered or became too dull to cut anything.  The test needs more controls and projectile points, but I was able to get eight shots into the ground with only minimal dulling of the cutting edge.  The point broke against a tree root on the ninth shot and created a fantastic example of an impact fracture. With my luck (or rather, lack of skill) I would break a dart point against a random hard object well before I had shot it so many times to warrant a resharpening flake pass.  Of course the most likely scenario would be a mixture of snapping and recycling alongside dulling and re-sharpening over the course of a hunting season depending on the hardness of the ground, hafting strength and the number of shots missed.  I’d like to revamp the test with a hundred darts or so to get a better picture of dulling versus breakage rates.  For instance, how many missed shots does it take to create an edge too dull to pierce hide and warrant retouch?  We’ll have to see.  I've never found a fragment large enough to re-sharpen after hitting a rock at 30 miles an hour so it seems that the local soil matrix will have a big effect on my breakage and re-sharpening ratios.  

reproduced crescent for hafting test 

The second test ended with me destroying the haft element two shots into the gig so I had to pack it up for another day.  I was (still am) interested in the prehistoric use of obsidian crescent tools.  This tool type is often encountered within Paleoindian assemblages, especially at sites located near relic shorelines of marsh environments.  These tool types have been tested for blood residue and appear to have come in contact with waterfowl, deer and human tissue.  Some have suggested that the more ornate shapes may represent prestige items or pendants.  Either way, I was going to haft the thing and launch it at meat to check out what type of damage pattern the system would deliver.  Well, the hafting element broke after two shots and the whole thing fell apart.  The wide surface area of the weapon seems to have shocked the haft and the whole mess became unusable.  I expect that this combination could do some serious damage, but unfortunately this is a test for another time.

pendant or projectile?

The Third test was a relative success. I was hoping to find out the smallest of river cane for use in my 45lb bow.  I have a stand of cane behind the house and have been trying to find an ideal length/diameter combination for this particular type of cane.  This cane needs heat treatment and straightening, as it tends to split due to flex otherwise.  Heating the shaft under low 
indirect heat helps to strengthen the arrow and makes thin river cane quite robust if done correctly.  The last cane arrow that worked well was used for the Foreshafts of Doom test.  That was about as large of a diameter as I could imagine working well.  Turns out that the wiggle room for the diameter and length combination is actually pretty small. Like my other tests, the twist of the feathers in flight sends lightweight shafts floating off to the top left.  In this test I had equipped the arrow with a heavier projectile point to compensate for the lightweight shaft.  This combination worked a little better but still wasn’t as accurate and hard-hitting as it should be.  The 45lb bow seems to want a slightly larger arrow diameter, medium flex and a projectile point that makes the arrow’s center of balance just forward of the middle.  I’ll keep refining the test.

don't worry it came that way

here's a point made on obsidian from Turkey, thanks John!

1a) poor isolation and bad angle took too much off from the platform

1b) removed flake showing the faulty platform 

All Mixed Up: Assessing the Triple Cortex Typology

Hello all,

Full cortex on dorsal side of an Edwards chert spall

 See video here

I was going over a few lithic coding sheets in preparation for upcoming field projects and though I'd check a few things out while making a point for an upcoming test on the blog.  Lithic coding sheets often appear very standardized, issuing group designations based on aggregate analyses and specific attribute analyses.  In following all the steps outlined in our code sheets we become comfortable that we are approaching the collection in an appropriate and meaningful manner, and that our hard work is time well spent in illustrating prehistoric behavioral patterns.  Our education and patience often pays off and lets us discuss patterning in mobility, cost-benefit decisions and different traditions of learning and acting.

Ventral side with no cortex

But, unfortunately our methods aren't always that cut and dry.  Let's have a quick chat about the Triple Cortex Typology.  This method splits an assemblage of flakes into three categories.  primary flakes have lots of cortex on the flake surface (the weathered outside of a stone). secondary flakes have less cortex than primary flakes and tertiary flakes have no cortex and lots of flake removal scars.  This method is used to infer early, middle and late stage flaking.  Some also use it to infer distance from procurement source with varying levels of success.  At this point the lithic analysts reading this are probably thinking "He makes that sound too loose, where are the cortex percentages to separate the categories"?  Well, that's a problem isn't it?  Check out a few publications and CRM coding sheets and you will often find a lack carefully defined measurements and variable percentages to construct each of these categories.  This of course leads to unreproducible data and an inability to compare patterns between studies.  Andrefsky (2005:115-118) discusses this problem in more detail in his book "Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis".

Scatter of platform prep flakes

So that's problem number 1, that the method, while potentially helpful is often subjective. Problem number 2 is that flakes that would appear to be primary, secondary and tertiary flakes (ie, early, middle and late stage) may all be produced at the same time.  Often small chips that we would consider to be "resharpening flakes" are created during platform preparation for larger cortical flake removals.  So, While the goal may be a single large cortical flake removal from a biface, a higher volume of smaller flakes has been created in doing so.  This pattern would perhaps lead us to classify a location as a logistical site due to a higher ratio of non-cortical to cortical flakes.  The flakes produced in this case may mask the actual intention of the stone work. 




The Test:

The mixed nature of cortex/non cortex

I decided to collect a subset of flakes made during the production of a projectile point to see for myself how different levels of cortex (to which one might infer "stage") may be created in a mixed manner, rather than the nice linear trend we often read about in texts.  This is something I had noticed before but still like to do to see the variability produced.  Sure enough, the guide flakes and platform prep flakes that must be removed prior to large cortical flake removal are smaller and have little to no cortex.  I'm always a little surprised at the mixed nature of size, shape and cortex that is removed over the course of biface thinning.  Eventually the cortical flakes taper out, although often times they pop back up again when I  start working another margin of the piece.

So...what then.  How do we asses stages of production!? Isn't that a meaningful measure to infer mobility?  Yep, I still believe that understanding how and when individuals decide to further reduce stone is important.  Careful disclosure of what percentage one calls primary and secondary flakes is essential for consistent measures and can offer valuable information regarding where people are choosing to carry out specific parts of stone tool production.  Yet I also see larger importance in attempting this maneuver in a way that accepts the complex nature of flake production, where flake morphology can rarely indicate discrete "stages", but are rather a part of a continuum where multiple morphologies may be produced in a mixed fashion.

Finished dart point

Check out the video to see what I mean.  Flakes of all different cortex measures are created well into the process.  Send me your thoughts as to how we might make better sense of this dilemma.  I have opinions too, don't worry.



















For more info on the problems associated with a strict adherence to primary, secondary and tertiary flake stages and distinctions between the types check out:


 Andrefsky Jr., William. 2005. Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis. Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Draper, John A and Gordon A. Lothson. 1990. Test excavations at 10NP143 and 10NP292, Lower Clearwater River, West Central Idaho. Project Report 12. Pullman:Center for Northwest Anthropology, Washington State University

Sullivan, Allen P. and Kenneth Rozen. 1985. Debitage analysis and archaeological interpretation. American Antiquity. 50: 755-79