Today’s picture comes from the Ahai Mneh site on the shores of Lake Wabamun, west of Edmonton, AB. This archaeological site has a long history of human occupation, from earliest hints of people in Alberta using Clovis technology, right up to the Late Precontact and Historic Periods. Featured here is a Late Precontact side-notched arrowhead, made of a fine-grained black siltstone, that likely dates between 1000 to 300 years ago.
Author: Reid Graham
Reid J. Graham is an Archaeologist with Tree Time Services Inc. in Edmonton, where he carries out Historic Resources Impact Assessments for Forestry projects in Northern and Central Alberta.
Reid is a recent graduate from the University of Alberta, where he completed a Master of Arts in Anthropology. In his thesis, Reid explored the relationships between the Besant Phase and the Sonota Complex, two interconnected Late Precontact cultures on the Northern Plains. He completed a Honours Degree in Anthropology at the University of Winnipeg in 2011, and has worked at archaeological projects in all over Western North America, including Upper Fort Gary in Winnipeg, the Quarry of the Ancestors north of Fort McMurry, and the Promontory Caves in Utah. Reid has also participated in numerous mitigation projects in Alberta and Ontario.
His current research interests include Northern Plains archaeological research, GIS analysis, communal bison hunting, and inter-group relationships.
End Scraper
Today’s artifact is an endscraper, a tool used to remove the flesh and hair from an animal hide. The person who made this tool took a small pebble, split it in half, and then chipped fine flakes off the one end to create a steeply beveled edge. The stone blade would then be attached to a handle, and dragged across a stretched hide to scrape the unwanted flesh and hair away. This artifact was found at the Quarry of the Ancestors site near Fort McMurray, and is made of a high quality chert.
Long distance trade
Featured picture this week is a bifacial knife, with fine retouch along the right margin to create a sharp edge. This knife is made from Knife River Flint, a stone material that can only be found in North Dakota, USA. Today’s artifact was found 70 years ago in Manitoba, Canada.
Tree Time Archaeology 