| Adzelike Tools |
Adzes and their flakes, axes, chisels, gouges and picks are included under one class because all are ground tools analyzed using similar traits. ADZES are long asymmetric unifacial tools with retouched hafts for wood and antler sockets. Their asymmetry arises from flaking and grinding on the dorsal face of the tip and sides of their bits, using the flat ventral bottom of the adze as a platform. Sometimes, a small groove was cut here parallel to the sides. This groove served as a limit for flake removal when the adze was sharpened. Sharpening FLAKES from the cutting edge or bit may be identified from the orientation of their striae or use lines and the curved platform. Lateral adze flakes have straight platforms. AXES are bifacial symmetric tools also with retouched hafts, their symmetry coming from equal flake removal and grinding of both lateral faces, with the cutting edge parallel to the long axis. CHISELS with unifacially or bifacially retouched bits are smaller than adzes unless hand-hafted, where they are larger. GOUGES are channel-ground for grooving wood while PICKS are crude pointed earth-diggers. |
| Artifact |
Usually refers to tools, but includes samples of soil, wood, antler, etc., from a cultural context, plus unworked flakes and blades. |
| Attribute |
A trait used in assigning an artifact to a phase or tradition. In this work, they include: material, colour, plan, section, metric data, location, type of base, retouch, wear, platform and breakage. Non-tool cores, blades, flakes and soil samples do not use all traits, while special burins, pushplanes and skin flexers have added traits. Most are self-explanatory but some, such as TORTOISE section, refer to an inverted dish-shaped face. |
| Awl |
A copper or bone hide-piercing tool. |
| Axe |
see under Adzelike tools |
| Burination |
Results from accidental longitudinal splitting of a point tip after striking a stone or bone, or intentional removal of spalls from one or both edges of a flake or artifact to form the sharp perpendicular edges of a burin. The number of spalls removed from burins is countable in the number of stepwise hinge fractures at the base of the spall face. |
| Core |
A round, cubic, flat, keeled, pyramidal, cylindrical, conical or amorphous stone mass used as a source of flakes or blades for making tools. Flakes and blades are removed by striking a platform, resulting in a scar on the core face. Flake scars along the periphery of a core usually diverge, while bladescars along a prepared curved platform resemble fluted Greek columns. The only true BLADE CORES are Pre-Dorset, but rare Taltheilei quartzite cores may look bladelike. A core itself may be a tool, e.g., PUSHPLANE if its platform series was deliberatly serrated, then worn by planing wood, bone or antler. |
| Culture |
Prehistorically, a way of life defined through artifacts of phase and tradition. |
| Edge Grinder |
Tool, usually sandstone, used for dulling point and knife basal edges to protect haft sinew. |
| Flakes |
Flakes are waste material resulting from core reduction; tiny flakes or shatter from tool sharpening. Those with part of the original cutting edge of a knife on their platform are SHARPENING FLAKES. Their size may infer original knife size or its conservation due to scarce raw material. WORKED FLAKES were used as awls, scrapers, gravers and knives. BLADELIKE FLAKES resemble blades in the absence of a blade tradition. Colour may have been important for identifying knapping quality and visibility against snow or sand when tools are dropped. |
| Flexer |
Identified by striae over their round ends, indicating skin bending for softening as in chitho edges. They occur in all Beverly traditions and phases on elongated tools such as points, knives, spokeshaves and the ends of bar whetstones. Similar to burnisher. |
| Gouge |
see under Adzelike tools |
| Graver |
A flake with retouched corners for engraving wood or bone, its multi-directional or rotational use not forming strial patterns. |
| Hammerstone |
A round or long symmetric pock-marked cobble or pebble of shock-resistant granite, quartzite or basalt. End or polar pocked ones were likely used directly on cores; side or equatorially pocked ones indirectly via a striker. As simple castoffs, many surface examples are too uniform for cultural assignment. Chipewyan hammerstones were replaced by historic metal axes. |
| Phase |
A time period with a distinctive collection of tools from many archaeological sites which identify a group of people over their seasonal round and within a given tradition. Phase can be conceived as an archaeological culture. |
| Pick |
see under Adzelike tools |
| Platform and the bulb of percussion |
The area on a flake struck using a hammerstone or billet when it was part of a core. The shock wave generated by the blow resulted in a convex or positive BULB OF PERCUSSION on the flake and a corresponding concave or negative bulb on the core. As bulb or platform remain on some tools, they are used as orientation in measuring and describing attributes. Some PLATFORMS are facetted, indicating careful core preparation to control flake or blade removal. |
| Shaft Polisher |
An abrasive sandstone block with a deep groove for smoothing arrow and lance shafts. |
| Spatula |
A long antler, bone or wood spoon for extracting marrow. |
| Spokeshave |
A concave scraper for rounding arrow and spear shafts. |
| Spur |
either a sharp unretouched but used corner on a flake or an retouched barb or apex on the end or side of an intentionally-made tool such as a graver or endscraper. |
| Striae and Polish |
Microscopic parallel lines made through tool use or manufacture. Visible use STRIAE form when scrapers and knives are used on sand-contaminated skin and flesh; or burins while planing or slotting wood, bone or antler objects. Striae size typify pressures needed; striae orientation their angle of application. POLISH lines are much smaller than striae and differ from wind abrasion because they may also be linear. |
| Taltheilei |
Name given to ancestral Chipewyan and taken from the Taltheilei Narrows which separates the main body of Great Slave Lake and its East Arm. |
| Tools and their Division |
Artifacts for performing specific tasks and analyzed by use wear and retouch on their tip (bit in scrapers and ground tools), midsection and base. Divisions may not be obvious. Reworked projectile points may have round or flat tips. Bases of knives and points may be pointed and sharp or their midsections may merge into base or tip, leaving side and basal edge fragments identifiable on use wear and blunting. If a retouched edge fragment has some base it is classed as retouched. If the retouch ends before the break, it is classed as unretouched. |
| Tradition |
A series of phases depicting consistently changing toolkits of a group, its ancestors and descendants living a similar lifestyle. The Beverly range has four traditions: Taltheilei (historic through 2600 B.P.), Pre-Dorset (2650 to 3450 B.P.), Shield Archaic (3500 to 6450 B.P.) and Northern Plano (700 to 8000 B.P.) |
| Wedge |
Bashed stone tool for splitting soft wood, hard antler or bone. May be hit unipolarly or bipolarly (one or both ends), double bipolarly or discoidally. Wood splitting results in unipolar percussion from the hammerstone; the opposite end is seldom smashed due to softer wood. Wedges used on antler or bone are often discoidally-hit because bashing around the periphery disperses hammerstone blows and prolongs the life of the wedge. |
| Whetstone |
A long symmetric bifacial tool of abrasive sandstone or schist for sharpening stone and copper tool edges or smoothing their faces. Mainly barlike in plan, some have suspension notches, while round or ovoid ones may have been carried in pouches as they were not easily replaced. All have flat tops and bottoms. Some are retouched, most are plain, and some are striated and very worn. Commercial whetstones of carborundum and Arkansas sandstone were imported and used by the Chipewyan in the 19th century. |