This is an example of a microblade - a tiny flint knapped stone tool. I was excited to find two of these today in my corner of our excavation 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska.
I found my first biface today! It's a beautiful green chert point almost two inches tall. It's been carefully worked on both sides (most of the flakes we find are only chipped on one side) and it even has little chips along the edge where someone once sharpened it. Actually, according to Dr. Jeff Rasic - head of the excavation - it's a "manufacturing reject" which was a "pre-form" until it broke and was thrown away. Also, it doesn't seem very old because it wasn't found very deep. But I still think it's an incredible piece!
Today was such a big day for me - my best day of archaeology yet. I also unearthed not one, but TWO microblades. These are tiny little strips of razor-sharp stone which researchers believe were used along the tips of spear or arrow heads and also embedded into wooden handles to make a sort of pre-historic X-acto knife. The ones I found today were down pretty deep - 80 to 90 centimeters below the surface - which means the are probably pretty old. Microblades were also made back in what is now Siberia on the other side of the Bering Land Bridge. Apparently people brought the knowledge of making microblades with them when they crossed into the new world.
This is the biface I found today behind a rock in the wall of my excavation. I was so excited! The archaeologists are usually so calm and respectful, but I pumped my first! This was apparently a tool that broke during its construction.
I'm getting so into digging for artifacts. I love it. It's so satisfying. It's like reading a good book - once you start, you can't stop. And really, we are turning back the pages of history. To think no one has touched these tools for thousands of years, and then we get to be the one to touch it first. We are the ones to bring them back into the light after eons in the cold blackness below ground.
Look closely to see the green piece of stone sticking out of the dark soil. This is what it looks like to find an artifact in the soil. This one turned out to be a flake left by ancient tool makers.
I also found a piece of ancient bone today. It looks like a leg bone of some kind and the hollow tube where the marrow once was is empty. (Did someone once scrape the marrow out for its high caloric value?) The team has found caribou bone here before so that's probably what it is, but I'm hoping it's camel or horse - which also lived here long ago before going extinct in this area.
This is right after I found the piece of bone. It is brown with age and even has tiny wiggly lines left by roots over the years. Dr. Rasic thinks it was right under the tundra plants among their roots many years ago, but when I found it, it was down 80 centimeters below the surface. Maybe there was a small landslide that covered the area later?
I had an interesting chat with Dr. Rasic after dinner last night. We were talking about how archaeology is like a very complicated puzzle we are trying to solve without having all the pieces or a picture to look at. We're using fragments of the garbage left by these people to try and picture their lifestyle. Rasic made the point that it's a luxury to be able study this stuff. The people who left it behind might not have had the time to study ancient garbage - they would probably have to focus on food and shelter. We are so well fed we can take the time to study these ancient riddles.
Don't you wish you could bite into this burger? I can tell you it was wonderful after a long day working at our remote site 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle, digging in the rocky soil.
Speaking of well-fed, check out the incredible burger I had last night. Wow! This burger would been satisfying in a fancy restaurant but here after working in the dirt for 9 or 10 hours it was incredible! Tonight we had fish right from the Kivalina River - cooked up in a pan with olive oil and garlic. Yum! I'm well fed and excited about another day of digging tomorrow. We'll be up at 6:30 or 7, have coffee or tea and a breakfast of yogurt or granola, then be on our way to the site by 8 a.m. We have an hour lunch break at 12:30 and dinner at 6:30 p.m. Most days someone will bring coffee or tea and some granola bars or chocolate up to the site for an afternoon pick me up.
Tomorrow will be my second to last day. I'm eager to get back to my wife and baby and to prepare for the school year, but I'll be sad to leave this exciting project.