This week’s blog comes to you from
our college intern this past summer. Working two to three days a week, she
processed a huge amount of data and gained practical experience in the analysis
of lithic artifacts. She was a quick learner and we enjoyed her stay.
My name is Alaina Helm. I am a
sophomore at Oberlin College, and planning to major in Archaeological Studies
and Geology. Over the summer, I volunteered with the State Museum of
Pennsylvania, Section of Archaeology. I have been fascinated with anthropology
and archaeology for as long as I can remember, dragging my family through
natural history museums whenever the opportunity arose. As the spring semester
drew to a close, I wanted to do something productive and educational over the
summer, so I contacted the museum, where I was welcomed and given the wonderful
opportunity to learn about the cataloging, processing, and analysis of
archaeological artifacts.
Alaina Helm and Dr. Kurt Carr examining lithic material from Kings Quarry (36Lh2)
Most of my time at the museum was
spent analyzing stone or lithic artifacts systematically surface collected in
three-meter squares from a jasper quarry site in Lehigh County called Kings
Quarry (36Lh2). The artifacts were mainly the chips from the making of stone
tools rather than the tools themselves. While at first glance the lithics may
appear to be regular rocks, at closer inspection you can identify signs of
production or how they were made. Evidence of reduction with differing types of
percussion instruments such as hammerstones or antler batons reflect all stages
of tool making – from the harvesting of raw material from the quarry to the
retouching of edges on already formed tools.
Closely examining a piece of flaked jasper
Under the Direction of Dr. Kurt Carr,
I learned to recognize types of percussion and predict the stage of production
of a given artifact. After first sorting through a group of artifacts to sort
out pieces showing signs of utilization or containing an intact striking
platform, I would go through each artifact with an intact platform to determine
if they were entire or proximal (broken). I could then determine what type of
bulb of percussion was present, the angle of the platform, whether the platform
had been ground or flaked, number of flake scars, amount of cortex material,
and amount of thermal alteration. After recording each of those pieces of
information, I would then make a judgement as to what stage of production
likely created the piece and record that too. Sorting through over 7000 pieces,
I was able to garner a comparison over different parts of the site to determine
if certain types of production activities were occurring in specific areas. I used an excel spread sheet to record all my
data which enabled me to produce analytical graphs for each excavation unit. These graphs allowed the areas to be compared
to each other to determine the location of different types of reduction
activities. One of our initial conclusions is that almost 90% of the tools and
utilized flakes came two excavation units and these were correlated with a
previously discovered fluted point. This suggests a Paleoindian occupation.
A pie chart showing each type of lithic material from Kings Quarry (36Lh2)
I also spent some time helping to wash and
process artifacts in the lab towards the beginning of the summer, a fundamental
process for curation. Towards the end of the summer, I also worked on
inventorying a collection of artifacts related to the Sheep Rock Shelter
(36Hu1) recently donated to the museum.
Alaina showing off a piece of flaked jasper she analyzed
Prior to working with the Section
of Archaeology I had very little experience studying and identifying lithic
materials. Working with the state museum staff, I learned to identify the
different aspects of knapping and the tool making techniques. Sorting through
what sometimes felt like mountains of jasper, I learned to identify reduction
methods utilized by Pennsylvania natives long ago. Although the summer has ended,
and the next semester will begin shortly, only a portion of the surface
collection was analyzed. I hope that in the future, analysis of the collection
can be completed, and if I get the chance whenever I am next home in
Pennsylvania, I would enjoy resuming the project.
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