Dugout Canoes, Stone Woodworking Gouges/Adzes/Celts, related to the Kelp Highway hypothesis and Beyond in North America

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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The B2 and D1 mt-DNA (Female) haplogroup lineages likely migrated via a Pacific coastal route around 15,000–18 000 years ago. A wave of expansion from Asia, which relatively quickly moved down the Pacific coast to Central and South America, is often associated with maritime adaptations. ref, ref

Kelp Highway hypothesis by Dugout Canoe?

As impressive as the idea that people could have traveled by boat/canoe into the Americas at a date that could and likely was pre-Clovis is also a complete lack of any such boats that it may have been done with, as well as a complete lack of old enough, large stone tools to carve out a log to make a dugout canoe.

“And large logs were not even possible in the Pacific Northwest until after 13,000 – 10,000 years ago, nor as we see now, likely until around the period between 6,000 and 3,400 years ago.” ref

“Well-preserved waterlogged/wet archaeological site explorations have revealed a focused use of wood and fiber technologies spanning more than 10,500 years along the Northwest Coast of North America.” ref

This may make the boat idea seem dead in the water, but it does not rule out bark-made canoes, which do not require stone tools like an adz (a specialized wood-carving tool) to construct. Bark canoes are mainly constructed from flexible sheets of bark fixed together with thin wood framing to form a canoe. They can use smaller tools, such as knives, to make. This light construction method also means they are temporary and would not likely last thousands of years to be found, thus proving them as the method used in something like the kelp highway hypothesis, but that does not mean they weren’t used; we just don’t know.

Kelp Highway hypothesis by Bark Boats?

“The bark canoe is the archetypal North American bark canoe. These were typically built with large sections of birchbark wrapped around a lightweight wooden frame. This construction made these boats light, easy to portage, and easy to repair with local materials if they got damaged. Bark canoes typically combine lightweight treebark with a wooden frame to create a light, maneuverable craft. The seams and cracks between sections of bark are typically sealed with some form of resin or gum. Many different trees have been used to build these canoes, so let’s cover some examples of the most common types.” ref

“Archaeologists find evidence of humans in the Japanese archipelago as early as 35,000 BCE. Judging from the dates at different archaeological sites, the earliest inhabitants of Japan seem to have migrated both northward from Taiwan and southward from Korea. The archaeological record hasn’t preserved any clues as to how these Paleolithic people made the crossing to this new land. But the obstacles to doing so seem, at first glance, insurmountable without modern technology and knowledge. So in 2013, a group of Japanese archaeologists set out to recreate the trip using only Paleolithic tools. And this reenactment of the Ancient Canoe Voyage seems to show this is/or could be, how the first settlers reached Japan.” ref

“Researchers tried reed-bundle rafts and bamboo rafts, both of which floundered in the strong current. The bamboo also began to crack and fill with seawater, further weighing it down. The team attempted one final trip with a hand-made dugout canoe, which, after rowing for over 45 hours, made it. Was their success a fluke? To test this, the team used the data from their paddling to simulate hundreds of dugout voyages starting from different points in Taiwan. They used both modern and Paleolithic oceanographic models, varying the strength of the current between ebbs and peaks. As long as the virtual boats paddled in the right direction, they made the crossing. The team used replicas of stone axes found in Japanese Paleolithic sites to fell a one-meter-thick Japanese cedar tree. They peeled off the bark and carved a seating area in the center of the trunk. While dugout canoes from the Paleolithic haven’t survived in Japanese archaeological sites, dugouts from the later Jōmon period (starting around 14,000 BCE) boast burn marks on the inside. In turn, the team polished the inside of their craft with fire.” ref

“One of the oldest-known examples of a Native American 16-foot birch-bark canoe is on display at a museum in Maine, where indigenous tribes have used them for thousands of years. It’s an example of the type of canoe that was critically important to the history and culture of the Wabanaki, the first people of parts of northern New England and Atlantic Canada.” ref

“One research project built and navigated in a reconstructed replica bark canoe to prove its seaworthiness and the way it could have been used in that region by a people whose way of life depended on the sea. If possible, we intended to navigate a long distance. Our first surprise after launching her, was her great stability. We had been influenced by Martin Gusinde’s work, where he constantly comments about the craft’s “unstable balance”, which is not any more unstable than any other canoe, such as a Canadian one, and is much more stable than a kayak. The most serious problem with leaks had to do with patches we had not caulked because we thought that water would not reach them. The second serious problem was due to the holes we had made to sew the bark, and water leaked into the canoe constantly until we filled them up with animal fat or clay. The latter problem was partly due to our lack of skill, as we did not really need such large holes as we had made with the awl. Natives used to cut a small cleft, similar to a slit made with a pen-knife. They used a punch made out of a bird bone cut lengthwise and sharpened at one tip, giving one of its faces a flat or concave shape. Caulking worked wonderfully, preventing water entry. We were surprised to see that, without any load and letting the canoe float freely, due to its insignificant draught, practically no water leaked into it.” ref 

“Researchers were surprised at the canoe’s high buoyancy. According to our tests, on a calm day (without wind or waves), a canoe covers 1,000 meters [3,279 ft.] in 7 minutes and 30 seconds, which means slightly over 4 knots. In fact, this was the best speed after several runs, during which we paddled steadily. “These Indians seldom venture outside the kelp, by the aid of which they pull themselves along”, Charles Wilkes (1842). Somewhat contemptuously, he was referring to navigation across the kelp, which was feared by all other types of vessels. Our tests across banks of live kelp were excellent. The canoe slid over them as if they were a denser surface without slowing down. The seaweed made the water calmer, which allowed the canoe to move faster. The distance these canoes could cover, apart from the speed the canoe can develop, depends mainly on the navigation conditions, the willingness of those paddling, and their fitness (nourishment, age, skill). Charles Wilkes (1842) mentions them being used to sail across Nassau Bay, a distance of some ten or twelve miles [16 – 19 km.]. Under normal conditions, the bark canoe lasted from six months to one year.” ref 

Kelp Highway hypothesis by Skin Boats?

“Skin boats were vital for the survival of Arctic sea-mammal hunters who had to navigate and hunt amidst sea ice, where bark boats would be crushed or punctured, and wooden boats were too heavy to be hauled up on top of ice floes when currents or wind caused the leads to close. In a pinch, a tear or puncture in a skin boat was easily repaired with a piece of your boot, a needle, and thread!” ref

“Ever imagine what the evolutionary jump felt like between crossing a river, bear-hugging a floating log, and that first inaugural voyage in a dugout tree trunk? Imagine then the resourceful person who took it one step further – fashioning a “floating tree trunk” where there were no trees? Who developed the idea of making a frame that would function as that tree trunk? Was the idea to cover it in the skin of an animal or the bark of a tree a concurring mental event? Or did one precipitate the other? In any event, the evolutionary stages that took us from clinging to flotsam in a river to constructing and commanding a floating vessel are truly remarkable.” ref

“There have been four types of skin boats developed in the past umpteen thousand years in a ‘tool /building’ stage. In the speculatively ordered sequence of development are the coracle, umiak, canoe, and kayak. Because of their frailty, there are few, if any, early, ancient examples of skin boats. Frames and skins just don’t last. What do last, however, are cave drawings, etchings on pottery, and in rare cases, accurate models of boats (toys perhaps?) of vessels presumably used during that artisan’s life. The earliest known kayak is a small model about 5,000 years old. It was simply a spindle-shaped frame with what looked like two sealskins pulled tightly over it.” ref

“Skin Boats in Scandinavia? Hakon Glorstad is a Professor of archaeology whose research covers Stone Age archaeology of Scandinavia, posed the question “Where are the missing boats?” and discussed the postglacial colonization along the Norwegian coast northwards. He demonstrates that, in taking our archaeological evidence seriously, despite its fragmentary nature, archaeologists can make meaningful contributions to our understanding of human societies and their history. In this case, a significant amount of maritime transport and seafaring throughout the Paleolithic and Mesolithic, including the very early pioneering period, can be inferred by looking at artifact distribution and site location, and also by incorporating comparative material produced by ethnography. While not all discussants were in favor of Glørstad’s interpretation that logboats were the major driver of this migration, most were confident that seafaring technologies could be addressed using indirect evidence and acknowledged the idea that some arguments could be made from the absence of certain evidence.” ref

“For the Pitted Ware Culture of the Early and Middle Neolithic (3500–2300 BCE or 5,500 to 4,300 years ago) in the Baltic region, including Kattegatt and Skagerrak, we are in a similar situation. As is well known, we know that PWC groups strongly depended on exploiting the maritime sphere, which makes it all but certain that they had highly developed maritime technology. Intact examples of seagoing boats that can be connected to the Pitted Ware Culture, however, remain extremely elusive. This is a common problem in ancient maritime archaeology, as the succeeding Bronze Age is also plagued by the same conundrum. Researchers are convinced that at this later period, plank-built boats were used on a massive scale, yet, apart from some logboats and a bark boat, no advanced vessel has ever been found. Solid knowledge about boat technology through direct finds only begins with the Iron Age and the discovery of the Pre-Roman Iron Age Hjortspring boat, as well as other Iron Age vessels.” ref

“For the Pitted Ware Culture, it would be easy and intuitively straightforward to simply take ethnographic parallel hunter-fisher-gatherer societies as analogies and assume that Neolithic populations had the same maritime capabilities. However, if we want to gain specific knowledge about local groups and how they used and adapted to the environments they were presented with, then a simple comparative study is not sufficient. We need to analyze other material and see between the cracks that are left by our fragmentary archaeological record. In the following, we will present evidence that may point to the use of different boat technologies. We will ask whether the Pitted Ware Culture groups utilized seals in the production of sealskin boats. We believe that our analysis will show that skin boats were the most likely watercraft used by Pitted Ware Culture people and that considerable direct and indirect evidence exists to back up this proposal.” ref

“Although finds of Neolithic boats from Scandinavia are extremely rare, there are a number of archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistorical parallels that can be used to fill in the gaps of our understanding of the possible types of watercraft that could have been used by Stone Age societies in the Nordic region. Throughout the world, ancient people using stone technologies have built elaborate and sophisticated watercraft that were capable of long-distance, open-ocean voyages. By the late Pleistocene, human populations in the Americas were able to navigate icy waters between glacial refugia to reach coastal regions of Pacific North America. From these examples, it is clear that ancient humans navigated open seas from very early times and had developed sophisticated watercraft by at least the Middle Paleolithic, long before we are likely to find remains of such craft in the archaeological record.” ref

“One of the most common types of boats used by Stone Age cultures throughout the world is the dugout canoe or logboat. The oldest archaeologically identified boat find, from Pesse in the Netherlands, is a 3 m-long dugout canoe dated to 10,000 years ago, which was likely used to navigate lakes and estuary waters. In historic and ethnographic times, numerous examples of dugout canoes can be found from maritime cultures throughout the world. These range from small examples similar to the Pesse canoe, to massive over 18 m-long war-canoes found on the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. The range in size of dugout canoes correlates with a range of functions. While smaller dugouts were not very seaworthy craft, large Haida canoes were capable of open-sea and long-distance voyages. In ancient Scandinavia, a wooden paddle from Västerbyn in Dalarna, dated to 9000 years ago, suggests a very old date for the use of boats.” ref

“There was considerable variability in the seaworthiness of dugout canoes depending on their length, width, and construction characteristics. Large expanded-side boats, such as those used by the Haida in North America, could carry large crews and were capable of long-distance voyages in the open ocean. Likewise, massive canoes such as those found at the Marmotta lake in Italy were likely seaworthy craft. Extremely large dugout canoes carrying many dozens of paddlers were also used for open ocean trade in ancient Mesoamerica. On the other hand, ethnohistoric data from Pacific North America suggests that smaller dugouts with widths of less than one meter were considered more dangerous than other boat types due to the risk of rolling over in rough seas and were mostly used on lakes or rivers.” ref

“Boats made from reed bundles are also a widespread and certainly very ancient form of watercraft. In Pacific North America, small boats shaped from three to five bundles of reeds are ethnohistorically documented as being commonly used for near-shore fishing, the navigation of estuaries, and occasional open ocean voyages under good conditions. Similar reed boats are still used today in Pacific South America by fishers in coastal areas and freshwater lakes. Larger reed boats, such as those used in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, were capable of longer voyages in the open sea, especially if waterproofed with tar. Unfortunately, reed boats are highly perishable and are highly unlikely to be preserved archaeologically. Tools used to cut reeds, however, might be possible to identify in the archaeological record, especially with the help of use-ware analysis, for example, on flint sickles of which thousands exist in Scandinavia and around the Baltic Sea from the Mesolithic through to the Late Bronze Age.” ref

“Composite boats made from combinations of dugouts, reed bundles, and planks are another critical category of ancient boats that are often overlooked in the archaeological literature. By combining a dugout log hull with reed or plank sides, ancient mariners and boat engineers could design very seaworthy craft. An excellent example of a boat of this type comes from Cedros Island off the Pacific Coast of Mexico, where indigenous islanders built such boats. Although these composite boats were able to navigate rougher seas than simple dugouts or reed craft, a major drawback is their relatively slower speed. Skin boats are another type of highly seaworthy watercraft that was used by many different cultures throughout the world. Skin boats were especially common in Arctic environments such as Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, but were also commonly used in historic times across much of North America and in parts of Europe such as Ireland and Britany.” ref

“In Europe, the currach was a similar boat used during historic times in Ireland and Brittany. It has also been suggested on mainly theoretical grounds that skin boats were used in Scandinavia during the Early Mesolithic, but both direct and indirect evidence is scarce. Glørstad has pointed to a lack of evidence for skin boat use during the Mesolithic as a reason to focus instead on logboats as likely sea-going vessels. One of the classic examples of a skin boat is the Inuit Umiak, which was made from seal skins sewn over a frame of wood or bone and waterproofed with seal oil. Umiaks were often around 10 m in length and could carry up to 15 passengers. Occasionally, especially large craft of up to 18 m were built. A lightweight boat, the Umiak was capable of long-distance voyages and was especially adapted to arctic terrain due to its ability to be easily lifted from the water and carried over ice.” ref 

“Where are the Missing Boats? In Norway, specialized marine adaptation and high mobility based on traffic with seafaring skin boats are key elements in a new synthesis of the colonization process. The main argument is that the long-term structures of Mesolithic settlement and subsistence in Norway are key to understanding the colonization of this landscape. Key elements in such a discussion are the nature of the early Mesolithic transport and communication systems. It is reasonable to question the range of mobility and the seagoing quality of the vessels.” ref 

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“Kelp Highway” hypothesis

If by Boats, what Boats?

AI Overview: The Kelp Highway hypothesis proposes that the first humans to settle the Americas arrived not by land, but by following a coastal “highway” of productive kelp forest ecosystems from Northeast Asia to the Pacific coast of North and South America. The primary difficulty in proving this theory is sea-level rise. Since the last ice age, melting glaciers have caused ocean levels to rise, submerging the ancient shorelines and potential archaeological sites under hundreds of feet of water and silt.

• The Route: Starting roughly 16,000 years ago, maritime hunter-gatherers are thought to have used watercraft to skirt the Pacific Rim coastline.
• Earlier Dates: Archaeological sites like Monte Verde in Chile (dated to ~14,500 years ago) and others in North America predate the opening of the land corridor.
• Ice Barriers: Geological evidence suggests the inland corridor was likely blocked by glaciers or too resource-poor to support life during the initial migration period.
• Ecological Benefit: Kelp forests acted as a biological buffer, dampening wave energy to make boat travel safer while providing a consistent, nutrient-rich buffet of shellfish, fish, marine mammals, and edible seaweed.
• Consistency: Because these ecosystems were similar from Japan to Baja California (and again in South America), migrants could use the same technology and tools throughout their journey without needing to adapt to drastically different environments. 

If by Boats, what kind of Boats?

“Archaeological site locations on small offshore islands indicate that people on the Northwest Coast had watercraft beginning in the early Holocene (12,000 to 10,000 years ago?), but direct evidence is no more than 2000 years old. The presence of archaeological sites on small offshore islands indicates access by boat for the past 10,000 years or more, though it does not provide clues about the type of boat or whether boat types changed through time. Proponents of the hypothesis for the initial peopling of the Americas via the coastal migration route and the kelp highway observe that watercraft would have been necessary, which suggests that the earliest watercraft on the coast may have had parallels in Asia. Some of the first migrants to the Northwest Coast are unlikely to have made dugouts resembling those in the post-contact era, since forests that might supply the requisite logs did not develop until later. Possibly suggesting skin boats or driftwood rafts as more plausible than dugouts.” ref

“However, there is no direct archaeological evidence of any kind of watercraft until relatively recent times. Unsurprisingly, research into the origins of the Northwest Coast dugout canoe and its variants tends to be conjectural or limited to the past few centuries. The oldest Arctic-style skin-boat specimen I know of is a 2000-year-old piece of a sealskin kayak from the Seward Peninsula in Alaska. There are small ivory figurine-like kayak-umiak models from graves of that same age in Siberia.” ref

“Some archaeologists have suggested that skin boats were used on the Northwest Coast prior to the development of dugouts. The notion that during the early Holocene people would have had simple and expedient watercraft appears to be rooted in conjectural evolutionary models of boat technology. Some nautical historians aim to reconstruct the evolution of modern (European) ships from a perspective of increasing technological complexity. However, the effort bogs down when confronting the range of small, simple types that do not line up in an obvious developmental sequence.” ref

“Much like the Northwest Coast watercraft conundrum, it is not clear, for example, whether skin boats came before, after, or separate from dugouts, or where tomol-style plank boats fit into the sequence. Other scholars have taken an adaptational approach, emphasizing that people built boats in different ways depending on geographic constraints, available materials, craft traditions, and purpose. This view has the potential to accommodate multiple boat types at the same place and time in history, but without archaeological evidence, it is no closer to elucidating the past than a conjectural evolutionary scheme.” ref

“It is possible that most wooden boats were recycled as firewood, mortuary furniture, or construction materials, and that lake and marsh boats and temporary-use watercraft along the coast were mainly bark or reed and have preserved poorly. I further note that ethnographic and ethnohistoric studies of Northwest Coast seagoing dugout canoes mention that their thin hulls rendered them susceptible to splitting in half lengthwise, and that many a canoe, as well as the people and whatever else it carried, went down. Although any or all of these factors may have reduced the number of boats entombed in wet-site deposits awaiting discovery by future archaeologists, it seems unlikely that this would have happened only on the Northwest Coast.” ref 

“Boats and transport are a major theme for the initial peopling of the Americas and the later Archaic era. The Kelp Highway Hypothesis is noteworthy for me because it helps explain (besides cultures relying on traditional tools because they work well) why groups living in Siberia and eastern Asia were producing spearpoints virtually identical to those from southern California. Walking by foot from Siberia to CA would take centuries, but using boats (possibly a combination of rafts, dugout canoes, and maybe hide-covered canoes) cuts that time down. You can skirt the ice floes and island hop down the Pacific Northwest. Some groups venture further inland while others keep heading south, possibly to find warmer climates and to get a sense of the new territory. A challenging part of confirming boat use during this time is the flooded coastlines and the region’s climate. The Pacific Northwest is notorious for decaying organic products. Most traditional Pacific Northwest longhouses and totem poles start rotting after a few decades. There’d be almost nothing left after a couple of centuries. After 10,000 years of decay, rising ocean levels, isostatic rebound, and eroding coastlines, finding any evidence for preserved boats, seasonal camp sites, houses, or anything like that is incredibly challenging. The stonepoints and related lithic items (scrapers, drills, knives) only tell a fraction of the story; it makes these ancient folks look simpler than they likely were. Looking at how far they traveled, all while preserving aspects of their religion (shells and red ochre burials), suggests to me they were anything but simple.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“I don’t know if they were complex hunter-gatherers because organic items are a key part of that, but it’s tempting. Just traveling those distances, both along the coast and inland, suggests group solidarity of some kind. With what’s known, I think it’s safe to say they had strong values about their communities, how to honor their deceased, where it’s safe to travel, and so on. For them, North America was a frontier. We don’t know if they were communicating with groups already here (such as the people who left the White Sands footprints) from the start, and we don’t know how much they knew about North America’s interior, but heading inland would’ve been dangerous. We get a glimpse of that with Kennewick Man, who was found with a point embedded in him. Conflict (at least in the Pacific Northwest and later on in California) picks up between 10,000 – 5000 B.C.E. along the west coast, possibly from different groups with different values competing over resources, marriages, travel routes, and everything else people usually fight over.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

My response: We can do other joint blogs, as I appreciate your thoughtful work. I want to help show others your value, Dylan.

“And I appreciate your work, also. I’ve spent a lot of nights (and days) looking over your research, listening to Cory and you talk about ancient cultures and how they relate to modern politics, plus your interviews with professionals. Great stuff, Damien.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

Multiple Migrations into the Americas from North Asia, bringing different DNA, Languages, Cultural thinking, and Religious Ideas

My response: I think more complex hunter-gatherers came in between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago, to me, like Kennewick Man’s group, he had Q Y-DNA and X mt-DNA, which we see in the Great Lakes, and the first dolmen burial with the Red Paint people in Labrador, Canada. I think Kennewick Man’s group came into North America around 9,000 years ago. No evidence of older Haplogroup X mt-DNA.

AI Overview: Kennewick Man, a mobile hunter-gatherer from Washington, but ties to Alaska glacial water. He exhibited a diet rich in salmon and marine mammals, with evidence of a violent, active life. Isotope analysis of his bones suggests that he spent the last two decades of his life in a coastal environment, likely near Alaska. Analysis indicated he consumed a marine-based diet and drank cold glacier-melt water that was consistent with the Alaskan region.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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The Mystery Of The Lost Red Paint People (VIDEO)

Secrets Of The Lost Red Paint People (VIDEO)

“The Red Paint People are a Pre-Columbian culture indigenous to the New England and Atlantic Canada regions of North America. They were named after their burials, which used large quantities of ochre, normally red, to cover both the bodies of the dead and grave goods. They flourished between 5,000-3,000 years ago. Alternatively, they can be called by the period in which they lived, either the “Maritime Archaic” (emphasizing a coastal and seafaring culture) or “Late Archaic” (emphasizing time and leaving open the possibility of living inland seasonally), although these terms often cover the longer period from 9,000 years ago to 1000 CE. Multiple hypotheses exist as to which if any later peoples might be their descendants and there is little archaeological evidence to support any hypothesis. The Red Paint People lived, fished, and hunted along the coasts and rivers. Some coastal sites show evidence of year-round occupation, discrediting an older theory that these people were seasonal nomads, living the summers on the coast and the winters inland. Their diet included sea and migratory fish, shellfish, meat, berries, acorns, nuts, and roots. The Red Paint People had stone and bone tools, as well as boats capable of catching swordfish. No pottery or metal tools have been found in sites associated with this culture. Their trading range is known to have extended from Labrador to the New York side of Lake Champlain.” ref

The Swordfish Hunters: The History and Ecology of an Ancient American Sea People (VIDEO)

7,714-year-old grave of a young boy from the Red-Paint (red ochre) Maritime Archaic Culture and the L’Anse Amour Site in Labrador Canada is oldest known burial mound in North America. The body was wrapped in a shroud of bark or hide and placed face down in the grave with his head facing to the west. At that point, a large mound of rocks was erected over his burial place. The burnt patches on either side of the body under the mound is charcoal from fires that would have been set north and south of the body in a sacred ritual. The Red Paint People are a Pre-Columbian culture indigenous to the New England and Atlantic Canada regions of North America in which they mainly flourished between 5,000-3,000 years ago. On the west side, it looks like a mound of rocks but from the East Side, there is a small dolmen-like chamber opening. A dolmen is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, with a large flat stone laid on upright ones and the oldest known are found in Western Europe, dating from around 7,000 years ago. ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Earth diver mythology or something similar??? Could be. In a way, snails are a kind of mound shape, thus similar to turtle shells, both may represent a mound of creation in the earth-diver myth. In Peru, there were snail shells, and snail shells are also used in the earth diver.

My thoughts on Dolmen origins and migrations, as well as Snail Shell Middens or Snail Burials/Turtle Shell Burials, and links from “Y-DNA R (R1a, R1b, and R2a)” migrations, maybe R2a leading to Proto-Indo-European, transferring it to R1b, taking it to the steppe 7,500 years ago.

Religion is a cultural product and moved in cultural migrations. So, it has been part of the human experience, similar to languages, from before we left Africa, spreading humanity across the world.

Pre-Columbian Red-Paint (red ochre) Maritime Archaic Culture 8,000-3,000 years ago

Damien, since you mentioned dolmens with the Maritime Archaic, I’d like your thoughts on something?

“In your papers and video on dolmen origins and migrations, you relate them to Haplogroup X. Dolmens cluster in Western Europe, but there are other pockets, such as the Baltic, the Levant, the Caucasus, the Urals, the Koreas, and parts of eastern China. Most, if not all, are considered human-made architecture. There’s another group of “balanced rocks,” but they’re in North America and cluster around New England and eastern coastal Nova Scotia. In all cases, they resemble traditional dolmens, but mainly the regional variant from the Baltic. Those Baltic ones were once considered natural glacial erratics, but growing research suggests most, or all, are built; they have a relation to the Sami, so perhaps that’s why they were considered natural (you get into the issue of racism with the Sami in your blogs and videos, how many once considered them inherently inferior and incapable of complexity simply for being hunter-gatherers). The Baltic dolmens are called “seids,” and are related to shamanism, shaman burials, and devotions to spirits.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“I’ve been thinking about those North American “balanced rocks,” and how they’re considered natural because they were in the glacier’s path and have glacial scrape marks. My issue with that is that glaciers also covered most of Europe, especially where dolmens concentrate. With the scrape marks, those are on lots of dolmens across Europe, especially around Scandinavia, since many boulders there were glacial erratics repurposed for dolmens. Dolmens across Eurasia have regional styles, and their builders (whether farmers or hunter-gatherers) used different colors for different purposes, such as catching sunlight or shadows, a symbolic relation between life and death, or other purposes, such as wet stones having different colors than dry ones. The North American “balanced rocks” or dolmens show the same motif. Small supporting stones, one large capstone, usually of a different color, texture, and stone type.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“Between 3000-1800 B.C.E., groups migrated across the Arctic, bringing Siberian and East Asian traditions to Greenland and Labrador. They either discovered or learned about Ramah chert from the Maritime Archaic, bringing the stone further south and into New England (Maritime Archaics were already hauling Ramah chert that far south). Like you’ve shown, the Maritime Archaic already had a tradition of building cairns and dolmen-like structures, so I’ve been wondering how those other dolmens could have gotten there. What are your thoughts about that?” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

My response: Haplogroup X mt-DNA is associated with the earliest Dolmens in the world, not all dolmens in the world. The first Haplogroup X mt-DNA is associated with the Dolmens cluster in Western Europe, and the Maritime Archaic as the oldest, but the cultural idea spread to others beyond that genetic makeup. However, Haplogroup X, particularly subclass X2, is an ancient maternal lineage found in early populations of the Caucasus mountains as well, a place with 3,000 megalithic dolmen tombs and ritual structures built between 3000 and 2000 BCE.

Dolmens of the North Caucasus

“Concentrations of megaliths, dolmens (Adyghe: исп-унэ) and stone labyrinths dating between the end of the 4th millennium and the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE have been found (but little studied) throughout the Caucasus Mountains, including Abkhazia, Georgia. Most of them are represented by rectangular structures made of stone slabs or cut in rocks with holes in their facade. These dolmens cover the Western Caucasus on both sides of the mountain ridge, in an area of approximately 12,000 square kilometres of Russia and Abkhazia. The Caucasian dolmens represent a unique type of prehistoric architecture, built with precisely dressed large stone blocks. The stones were, for example, shaped into 90-degree angles, to be used as corners or were curved to make a circle.” ref

“While generally unknown in the rest of Eurasia, these structures are equal to the great megaliths of Eurasia in terms of age and quality of architecture, but are still of an unknown origin. In spite of the variety of Caucasian monuments, they show strong similarities with megaliths from different parts of Eurasia, like the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, France, Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Iran, and India. A range of hypotheses has been put forward to explain these similarities and the building of megaliths on the whole, but still it remains unclear.” ref

“Approximately 3,000 of these megalithic monuments are known in the Western Caucasus, but more are constantly being found, while some are being destroyed. Today, many are in great disrepair and will be completely lost if they are not protected from vandals and general neglect. The North Caucasus Dolmens make up a lost city by the shore of the Black Sea. The dolmens could have been vaults of metal objects or jewelry that were pillaged by the invading Scythians around the first millennium BCE.” ref

My response: Likewise, Haplogroup X (mtDNA) is a rare, ancient maternal lineage present in very low frequencies in the Funnelbeaker (TRB) contexts, though it is not a defining characteristic of the culture. They made Dolmens as well.

AI Overview: Funnelbeaker Culture dolmens are massive Neolithic stone grave monuments, or megalithic tombs, built between approximately 4100 BCE and 3200 BCE, primarily across Northern Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands. As the earliest monumental tombs in these regions, they symbolize a shift towards communal labor and ancestor worship, often featuring a chamber constructed from large boulders covered by a mound.

“Analysis of two Funnelbeaker genomes from circa 3000 BCE shows that they possessed over 60% of Atlantic_Med admixture, more than any modern population except the Basques and the Sardinians, two populations with high Neolithic ancestry. This admixture is strongly reminiscent of the extent of the Atlantic Megalithic cultures. Atlantic Megalithic Culture mtDNA (c. 6,000 to 4,000 years ago; Western Europe): H1, H3, HV0, J, K (x2), K1a, K1a1, K1a1b1 (x2), N1a, T2a1b, T2b (x2), U4, U5b (x3), U5b1, U5b2b3, U5b3, V, X2. The oldest megalith in Europe is the Cromlech of the Almendres in central Portugal, built in the 6th millennium BCE. It was followed by the constructions of the Cairn of Barnenez (c. 4800 BCE) in Brittany, the Tumulus of Bougon (c. 4700 BCE) in central-western France, and the Dolmen de Alberite (c. 4300 BCE) in southern Andalusia. It is only from 4000 BCE that megaliths start appearing more widely around Western Europe. From 3500~3400 BCE, megaliths builders start moving into the Low Countries, Germany and Scandinavia, where they would integrate the Funnel-beaker culture.” ref

Funnelbeaker Culture mt-DNA X 6% of mtDNA samples breakdown:

• Baalberge group (c. 5,800 to 5,350 years ago; central-east Germany): H (x3), H1e1a, H7d5, HV, J, K1a (x2), N1a1a, T1a1, T2b, T2c (x2), T2e1, U5b2a2, U8a1a, X, X2c
• Walternienburg-Bernburg group (c. 5,100 to 4,700 years ago; central-east Germany): H, H1e1a3, H5, K1, K1a (x2), T2b, U5a, U5b, U5b1c1, U5b2a1a, V, W, X
• Salzmünde group (5,400 to 5,000 years ago: central-east Germany): H (x2), H3 (x2), H5, HV, HV0, J, J1c (x2), J2b1a, K1, K1a, K1a4a1a2, N1a1a1a3 (x2), T2b (x2), U3a, U3a1, U5b, V, X2b1’2’3’4’5’6

My response: Dolmens did have somewhat regional styles (with variation even within this), as did shell mounds, kurgans, earth mounds, and pyramids. To me, the main structure was not as important as the generally mythological or cosmological thinking behind them. Just as the myths evolved and adapted to changes in culture or time, so too did the megalithic structures being built. Variation was the norm, more than some strict constant that never changed.

Art/Map by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“An older map I made showing dolmens and seid regions; the multi-colored, rectangular icons are gouges. Yellows are short-channeled gouges, green are half-channeled, and blue are full-channeled. The Baltic’s hunter-gatherers, from ca. 8000-2000 B.C.E., made lots of gouges similar to and virtually identical to Eastern Archaic ones. The Lost Red Paint People documentary (Bullfrog Films, 1985) in your blog gets into these and Gutorm Gjessing’s “Circumpolar Stone Age” hypothesis.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

My response: From what I know, Megalithic dolmens in the Baltic region were primarily built by the Funnelbeaker culture (approx. 3500–2800 BCE). “Like the Great Dolmen of Dwasieden of the Funnelbeaker culture, constructed between 3500 and 2800 BCE. Or the Great dolmen of Goldbusch, also of the Funnelbeaker culture, constructed between 3500 and 2800 BCE.” ref, ref

AI Overview: Megalithic dolmens in the Baltic region are Neolithic chamber tombs, primarily built by the Funnelbeaker culture (approx. 3500–2800 BCE), featuring massive stone construction. Concentrated along the German Baltic coast (Rügen) and southern Scandinavia, these monuments often served as ancestor shrines, featuring capstones, chambers, and surrounding stone curbs.

AI Overview: Seid (or seida, seitar) refers specifically to indigenous Sami sacred stones or standing, often “legged” (supported by smaller stones) boulder structures in northern, Russia. These are often found on high ground or sacred landscapes. Associated with the Sami culture of Northern Europe, particularly in Russia. Large boulders or rocks, sometimes set upon smaller stones to appear as if they have “legs”. Often found on hills, mountains, or overlooking lakes in natural, sacred settings. They are sometimes compared to other, more westerly megalithic structures like the “Seidr stones” of Cornwall. While classical, large-scale, man-made megaliths are well-documented, the seid stones are considered natural features adapted for, or believed to possess, spiritual power.

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

My response: Likely the oldest or first Northern Scandinavian hunter-gatherers (SHG) were those 10,300 years ago, related to Eastern hunter-gatherers (EHG). Eastern hunter-gatherers had DNA mainly derived from Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry introduced from Siberia, with a secondary, smaller admixture of European Western hunter-gatherers (WHG). Scandinavian hunter-gatherers were a mix of Western hunter-gatherers who initially populated Scandinavia from the south during the Holocene, and Eastern hunter-gatherers who later entered Scandinavia from the north along the Norwegian coast. The Sami people inhabiting northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula have both DNA from Scandinavian hunter-gatherer and from Proto-Finnic from 1600 to 1500 BCE, later “became” the Sámi, as Sami is a Finnic-related language. Finnic and Sami languages are related to the western Uralic languages. Uralic languages are around 5,000 years old in Siberia. ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

AI Overview: Recent 2025 genetic studies support that Uralic languages originated approximately 4,500 years ago in Northeastern Siberia (Yakutia) before spreading westward.

“Many modern-day Uralic-speaking populations carry the same genetic signature that first appeared, in unmixed form, in the 4,500-year-old samples from Yakutia. Strong DNA currents of Yakutia ancestry at a succession of ancient burial sites stretching gradually to the west, with each bearing rich reserves of Seima-Turbino objects.” ref

AI Overview: The Seima-Turbino phenomenon/culture(s) (c. 2200–1900 BCE “a pattern of burial sites with similar bronze artifacts”) refers to a vast, rapid spread of advanced bronze-casting technology and nomadic cultures that stretched across northern Eurasia, from Fennoscandia (Scandinavia/Finland) in the west to Mongolia, Northeast China, and the Russian Far East in the east.

Sami Shamanism: Religio-Sociocultural Identity, Phenomenon, and System

“The Pitted Ware culture (c. 3500–2300 BCE) was a hunter-gatherer culture in southern Scandinavia, mainly along the coasts of Svealand, Götaland, Åland, north-eastern Denmark and southern Norway. Despite its Mesolithic economy, it is by convention classed as Neolithic, since it falls within the period in which farming reached Scandinavia. The Pitted Ware people were largely maritime hunters, and were engaged in lively trade with both the agricultural communities of the Scandinavian interior and other hunter-gatherers of the Baltic Sea. A genetic study published in August 2014 found that Pitted Ware peoples were closely genetically similar to people of the Catacomb culture.” ref

“The Catacomb culture emerged on the southern part of the Pontic steppe in 2,500 BCE, as a western descendant of the Yamnaya culture. Influences from the west appear to have had a decisive role on the formation of the Catacomb culture. A generic similarity between Catacomb people and northern hunter-gatherers, particularly the people of the Pitted Ware culture of southern Scandinavia, was detected. Evidence of Catacomb influence has been discovered far outside of the Pontic steppe. Its burial chambers, metal types, and figurines are very similar to those appearing in Italy and the eastern Mediterranean, while the hammer-head pin, a characteristic ornament of the Catacomb culture, has been found in Central Europe and Italy. Based on these similarities, migrations or cultural diffusion from the Catacomb culture to these areas have been suggested. Similarities between the Catacomb culture and Mycenaean Greece are particularly striking. Named for its burials, similar to shaft-graves of the Yamnaya culture, with a burial niche at its base, the so-called catacomb. Such graves have also been found in Mycenaean Greece and parts of Eastern Europe.” ref

“The people of the Pitted Ware culture were a genetically homogeneous and distinct population descended from earlier Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers (SHGs). The culture emerged in east-central Sweden around 3,500 BC, gradually replacing the Funnelbeaker culture throughout the coastal areas of southern Scandinavia. It subsequently co-existed with the Funnelbeaker culture for several centuries. Pitted Ware people were typically buried in flat inhumation graves, although cremation did occur. Unlike the Funnelbeakers, they did not have megalithic graves. Pitted Ware burials are also distinguished from Funnelbeaker burials through their use of red ochre. People of all ages and genders were buried in the same cemetery. There are no indications of a difference in social status. Their mortuary houses and secondary burials are nevertheless evidence of complex burial customs.” ref

AI Overview: While red ochre is a defining characteristic of the contemporary Pitted Ware culture (which often coexisted with or replaced Funnelbeakers in coastal areas), there is evidence that the Funnelbeaker culture also utilized red materials. The funnelbeaker culture did not seem to use red ochre in Germany and Bohemia, or in Poland and Ukraine. But red ochre was used in burial rites, particularly in northern European, Scandinavian, and Baltic regions. The Dutch Funnelbeaker culture, for instance, showed a marked preference for red-hued materials, such as red Heligoland flint, which was used in both tools and burial contexts. While both cultures used red materials, red ochre is more traditionally highlighted as a key, widespread burial marker for the Pitted Ware culture, setting them apart from the typical megalithic burial and non-ochre-heavy, earlier Funnelbeaker customs.

“Seide (Alternative forms:said,saide,sayd,sayde,seid,seyd,seyde), in Sami religion, idols of wood or stone, either natural or slightly shaped by human hands, worshipped as possessing impersonal supernatural power or as actually being inhabited by a spirit with whom one could communicate. Seides were most commonly located in places where some feature of the topography, such as rapids or steep rocks, sharply distinguished the place from the rest of the landscape. The seide itself could consist of a high promontory or a rock jutting out in an unusual fashion or shaped in such a way as to cause wonder. Many of the seides were located in areas associated with the subterranean otherworld or world of the dead (saivo). Seides could be worshipped by an individual, a family, and even an entire lineage. One of the many seides was generally singled out as greater than the others and worshipped as the common deity of all in the village. It was situated higher than the others, lesser family gods being placed lower at the site of worship. The seides were believed to protect the people and bring them good fortune in their undertakings. Sacrifices of reindeer, fish, game, and other offerings were made to them. The power of the seide could be determined by the number of sacrifices made to it, because this was a direct reflection of the worshippers’ trust and faith in the idol. The seide ruled only the particular area in which it was located and received its significance from its natural context, which caused it to inspire awe in its worshippers.” ref

Art/Map by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

Picture provided by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“North Salem Balanced Rock. The top is pink granite, while the smaller stones are a different, lighter colored stone.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

Picture provided by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“Mount Vottovarra seid. Just one of hundreds scattered across springs, mountains, and crevices of the eastern Baltic.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

Art/Map by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“Some seids from Nova Scotia; blue, rectangular icons are full-channeled gouges. Red ones are indeterminate gouges (damaged item, no image, etc.) The yellow icon beneath the red is a short-channeled gouge. All other icons are Maritime Archaic lithic spearpoints.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“I agree that the primary purpose of dolmens (multi-generational collective burial places, mainly) is more important than regional styles. Their regional styles suggest changes in religious aesthetics over hundreds of years, regional variations that come with time, migrations, and trade influences. With the Baltic dolmens, you’re right that the Funnelbeaker culture was a key player in making most of those. However, their primary territory is around Germany and Denmark, with extensions into coastal Norway and Sweden. There’s another group of dolmens further east, around Estonia, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula. These have a different style than most Funnelbeaker dolmens, and some older researchers said they were Sami constructions. Looking at the trade routes and influences of the Neolithic-Bronze Age, I’d think the earliest were made sometime between 4000-2500 B.C.E. Indo-European.eu and your blogs do a great job of showing migrations and genetics. In some of your blogs, you show rockart distributions, such as similar moose styles across Siberia, and people wearing horns and using boats around the Baltic. I’m thinking the folks who made these were part of that tradition.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“I think we could pair that with the red ochre usage. The Baltic’s got lots of red ochre cemeteries. Groups living around the Great Lakes also had similar traditions. They used swan bones for flutes, made northern hunter-gatherer style boat art (I favor an Archaic date for most of the Peterbough petroglyphs, and even Jack Steinbring though that dating was possible, too, based on similarities with western rock art from Minnesota). Towards the Late Archaic, we see more bear ceremonialism (bear skull masks during the Archaic, figurines dressed as bears during the Hopewell era).” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

Here are some notes from the Peterborough, Ontario, rock art site (also called the “Teaching Rocks”):

“Multi-component site with styles spanning the Middle Archaic to the Anishinaabe era; similar motifs with the Jeffers Petroglyph site in SW Minnesota (I-A Triangulates/Wedge Idols). Most art is classic northern hunter-gatherer artwork (solar heads, boats with underside steering equipment, vertical lines representing oars or people, solar symbolism with boats). It’s considered a sacred site with, so it’s possible to likely it’d be maintained. Periodic visits to recarve certain scenes to preserve the site. Similar rock art preservation practices are documented for several hunter-gatherer societies, especially if the site has religious meaning or crucial histories.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“Vastokas and Vastokas gave a tentative date for the site at ca. 500-1100 C.E., based on some pottery fragments found in some etchings, a nearby village site, and some Anishinaabe art reminiscent in some ways to the Teaching Rocks. However, Archaic materials, specifically Laurentian materials, were also found near the site. The Lake Forest Tradition (Old Copper Complex, Laurentian Archaic, and likely the Maritime Archaic, too) had a tradition of naturalistic artwork, including mammal and bird figurines on tool handles, true figurines, and rock art, such as the Jeffers Petroglyphs site in southwestern Minnesota, which is related to the ancient Western Hunting Tradition from the Great Basin/Western North America region.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“Back in 1973, it was thought pottery originated in the Midwest with the Adena and Hopewell. That’s changed. We now know pottery began (possibly) along the lower southeast Atlantic coast with the Stallings Island culture, before spreading south and north. Several sites around Ohio have shows old pottery fragmments, too, with dates ranging from ca. 2500-800 B.C.E. Several of these pieces showed similarities with younger, Adena and Hopewell pottery, including style and grit tempering. There’s also a site further west at Nebo Hill with pottery from ca. 2000-1700 B.C.E. What concerns me with these earlier dates is the current framework in North American archaeology that says pottery got started in the Midwest around 1000-500 B.C.E. Sure, professionals likely know of these earlier sites, but the general public, and I think many avocations do not. So, if they find a pottery sherd in the farm field or out in the wood along a creek’s bank, they’d likely consider it Woodland or Mississippian, even though it could be an ancient, Archaic style. This means that there’s a chance, however slight, that the pottery sherd Vastokas and Vastokas found is Archaic and not Woodland.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

My response: Red ochre in burials started with Neandertals (Archaic Humans) at least 130,000 to 120,000 years ago. Modern humans (Homo sapiens) started doing it at least 100,000 years ago, influenced by Neandertals. But it was not really in complex, structured, ritualistic burials until Sunghir, Russia, at around 30,000 to 34,000 years ago, showing elaborate, high-status graves with red ochre. This is around the time I think shamanism emerged.

AI Overview: The earliest documented use of red ochre in North America dates to approximately 13,000 years ago, identified at the Powars II site in Platte County, Wyoming. This Paleoindian site is recognized as the oldest, most extensive red ochre mine in North America. As well as the Anzick site in Park County, Montana, is the oldest known human burial in North America, dating to approximately 12,600–13,000 years ago. other early sites, including the Yucatan Peninsula (10,000–12,000 years ago) and later in the Archaic/Woodland periods (e.g., in the Great Lakes region). Red Paint People (Maine/Canada): Between 3000 and 1000 BCE, these groups covered bodies and artifacts in large amounts of red ochre, often in coastal graves. Red Ocher Culture (Midwest/Great Lakes): Dating from 1000 to 400 BCE, this culture (found in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, etc.) is known for burying honored dead on high ground or ridges, often with “turkey-tail” flint points and copper artifacts.

“Yes, that’s right. Red ochre use is incredibly ancient, and gets more structured through time. By Neolithic times, it’s associated with shells and coastal areas, such as southern France, Iberia, and the Balkans. By the Bronze Age, it becomes abundant around the Steppe and parts of the Caucasus, associated with Maykop and Novosvobodnaya dolmen burials. Over in North America, we see similar practices. A favor for coastal regions and shells. Many coastlines with shell middens, such as California and the Gulf of Maine, show red ochre burials. I hypothesized that given the relation between shell middens and red ochre burials during the Archaic, that this burial style would be found in the Pacific Northwest, and Heather Pringle’s National Geographic article confirms this.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

Indigenous Copper use in North America: 10,000 to 500 years ago

CopperViolette – Some Thoughts from My OCC Notes

“Here’s a general overview of my thoughts: When Don Spohn, the Great Lakes Copper Research Group (possibly), and Ryan Peterson compare the Old Copper Culture/OCC to other global cultures, they rely on Israel’s Ghassulian culture and the Bronze Age, although a more accurate comparison would be the Balkans, Old Europe, and the interaction between EEFs and Mesolithic communities. There are more similarities between Old Europe, its Mesolithic cultures, and the Archaic Midwest and Eastern Woodlands (emphasis on green stones/copper and green tuff, curved-back gouges, shells, red ochre burials in the ground or in shell middens, ground stone and slate technology, mining pits, reliance on fishing and coastal navigation, etc.; see comparison list) than there are between it and Neolithic-Chalcolithic Israel.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“Ryan Peterson compares OCC mining activities with Ojibwe oral traditions about the significance and sacredness of copper, Isle Royale, and the Great Lakes. The Ojibwe weren’t in this region during the OCC’s peak; Ojibwe have a migration story where they came from the east, with an estimated date between ca. 1500 B.C.E. – 1000 C.E. (debated timing). While useful for perspective (similar to Seth Grooms’s method for decoding Poverty Point’s purpose), they weren’t the original miners, coming possibly from Quebec or the Labrador region, and bringing different world views to the northern Great Lakes. If the Ojibwe came late, as most scholars and tribes think, then they’d share features with incoming Arctic cultures that originate in Siberian cultures participating in bronze and iron trade networks, widespread traveling, etc. Also, they’d share features with tribes living along the Gulf of Mexico (more interaction across the Americas between 500-1492 C.E.) and Central America (travel from Florida into the Carribean and into the Yucatan, and vice-versa, and travel from Louisiana along the coast into Mexico; Central American influence in the Southwest and Eastern Woodlands between 100 B.C.E. and 1300/1492 C.E.). There’s too much change between 4000-3000 B.C.E. and the Ojibwe’s arrival into the northern Great Lakes for me to fully rely on Ryan’s interpretation when we have more accurate and even identical comparisons looking at the world of ca. 6000-3000 B.C.E., with modern archaeology and international research shedding light on their religions (especially with Eurasia, with less restrictions on in-depth research; no NAGPRA).” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“The OCC, the SMA, the LFT, and the Pacific Northwest cultures (later) originate from the same traditions (with some regional variation) as the EEFs and Mesolithic cultures of Eurasia (ancient Siberian and Steppe shamanism, red ochre usage and burials, an emphasis on shells and coastal travel). If the Eurasian evidence is anything to go on, especially with the Baltic region and EEF-Mesolithic fusion cultures of France and the Balkans (Mid-Late Archaic cultures practiced some agriculture, but not intensive; mostly small plants and gourds) a possibly more accurate OCC/Archaic Midwest religion relates to a balance of opposites, seeing life as interconnected, believing the world is filled with spirits and that there’s an afterlife. The religion was expressed through community gatherings, song (flutes, drums, singing, dancing, etc.), shamanism (possibly using vision quests, psychedelics, fire dancing/chanting, repretitive actions, or anything to produce a waking dream state to see “spirits” that reflect thoughts, feelings, and the environment; set and setting), feasting, and pilgrimages. The emphasis on water and burials placed in locations meant to stir awe (sweeping coastal locations, mountain and hill tops, at river junctions with good views of deltas, the coast, prominant hills, etc.) may relate to a “flow” and “awe” some people describe when having waking dreams, trips (i.e., mescaline, and psilocybin, amanita, ayahuasca, trances, and experiencing “everything flowing like water”), or near-death experiences. It’s a religion that relies more on natural plants, including tobacco (eventually), than the EEF’s “alcohol-based” religion (Tas Tepeler beer tubs within and surrounding T-Pillar sites); having residue analysis of Poverty Point and SMA pottery could help confirm this.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“The religion likely has built-in hierarchies. In Siberia, totem poles were being carved by at least 10,000 B.C.E. before spreading into Anatolia (Tas Tepeler stone totem poles) and the Pacific Northwest, where the tradition still exists, along with other Siberian traits; periodic or consistent migrations between Siberia, North America, and vice-versa, as shown with DNA – need more data. With Shaman-Totemic religions, spirits and people are placed in hierarchies (Creator/Creators, Its helpers, and lesser spirits, such as those governing trees, grass, rivers, etc.; shamans, grandparents, parents, children; experts and novices; pets and wild animals). People can move up or down hierarchies depending on knowledge and actions, such as successful, bountiful hunts or crimes/taboos, including theft, being too wasteful, or being disrespectful to hunted animals.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

ref

Dugout canoes are not bark canoes, because dugout canoes were carved from a single, large log that was likely dug out with a Stone Woodworking Gouge/Adze/Celt.

“Dugouts are the oldest boat type archaeologists have found, not because they had to be the oldest boat types ever made but probably because they are made of massive pieces of wood, which tend to preserve better than others, such as bark canoes.” ref

Item photos provided by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

Edited by Damien Marie AtHope

“Gouges have an interesting development history. It’s thought by several archaeologists, including Bruce Bourque, James Tuck, and Brian Robinson, that the earliest gouges were made from scapulas from deer. These items show wide, flaring bits and full channels. These mimic the earliest stone gouges. Based on available data and in situ dating, the earliest stone gouges appear somewhere along the northern east coast around 8000 B.C.E. before spreading inland and into the Canadian Maritimes. Already, at this early date and later, gouges show cultural significance, since they’re almost always found in graves. Most gouges between 8000-5000 B.C.E. are full-channeled. It’s only after 4500 B.C.E., roughly, that we see more gouge variation, with short-channeled ones becoming much more common across the northeast. Appearing alongside these are half-channeled gouges, a rarer variant that seems to cluster around the eastern Great Lakes, parts of the Gulf of Maine, and coastal Labrador.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“The half-channeled gouge image I shared with you is known as the “Emerson Gouge,” since it comes from Maine’s Emerson cemetery, a documented southern Maritime Archaic burial ground, and is featured in Bruce Bourque’s 2012 book, “The Swordfish Hunters.” Bruce showed this piece to an artifact collector knowledgeable in ancient stone work several decades ago. He considered the item the acme of perfection. This gouge is unique because its channel runs half its length (a half-channeled gouge), it has a cutting bit on the other end (making it a multi-tool), and might originate in Labrador or Newfoundland; Bruce Bourque thinks these Maritime groups were exchanging finished stone tools alongside Ramah chert. Unfortunately, this gouge went missing alongside other pieces that somehow ended up in a Midwestern auction show. Some stolen items were recovered, but the Emerson gouge is still missing. I showed a clay replica of this gouge in David Pompeani’s podcast #31.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“The collector’s comment is worth considering, because it puts these item into a global context. The quality of these items and their obvious standardization rivals earlier and even later stonework from the northeast. Not only this, but they rival iconic stonework from anywhere in Afro-Eurasia between 4500-1000 B.C.E. As Bruce Bourque has said, these tools are unlike any that came before and any that came after. I currently have 1207 in my GIS database, but gouges are much harder to find than copper ones because you can’t use metal detectors. So, not only is it likely many more exist, but that copper ones are likely to be found alongside their cluster zones, too. Copper gouges cluster mainly in Wisconsin and U.P. Michigan, but others are documented from the Finger Lakes region in New York state, and at least one was reported near Old Town, ME, along the Penobscot river. Since they’re tricky to find, one needs to rely on site maps, artifact cluster zones, and waterbodies; northern complex-hunter-gatherer-fishers have a strong relationship with waterbodies throughout the Middle and Late Archaic. The wide spread of these tools shows, at least to me, how well-connected these different groups were, even thousands of years before pottery and agriculture was widespread in North America. It also shows the lengths folks would go to get cultural and era-defining items, risking their lives to travel hundreds and thousands of miles over their lifetimes.” – CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

My response: I think woodworking is more important than most people think. A lot of people don’t address woodworking, but more stuff was made out of wood than stone. The problem is that wood rots away, often leaving little to no trace, and stones last, so they are addressed more extensively. But think with all the stone axes, adzes, and gouges or other wood working tools found there must have been lots of worked wood we will never find or may only partly understand. But there needs to be more work trying to understand. And beyond just stone tools are all the copper and woodworking tools. My interest would be to see how much we can understand what all these were being used for and what the finished worked wood related to or for the different cultures, and if there were shared patterns as well as religious or mythological features or themes. We often see the world as secular, but to most people in the past, lots of things they did or things in their lives were connected to religion.

“I agree with all these points. There’s a lot of literature about stone tools and ceramics, but little about woodworking tools. The emphasis on rivers, Lakes, wetlands, and coastlines, canoe “parking lots” in Florida and Wisconsin, deep water travel and fishing (heading to Isle Royale for copper; hunting swordfish and cod around the Gulf of Maine), suggests to me a well-developed woodworking tradition that isn’t getting mentioned as often as it should be. Most discussion focuses on dugout canoes, and while this is incredibly important, it leaves out everything else they likely made. I don’t think they’d invest this much work into durable woodworking tools, whether copper or polished stone, unless they were working wood daily or weekly, and that these tools and the items made were socially significant.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“We have several stone and bone figures, and many bone hair or clothing pins around southern Illinois. Beads and bracelets are well-known items for the Mid-Late Archaic, too, though most are copper, Shell, or stone. You can easily make these items out of wood. Even tools and weapons, such as wooden clubs, daggers, or shovels, can be made from wood, and some cultures did this, such as Australian Aboriginals and their wooden swords. There’s so much we’re missing with these people by leaving woodworking out of the discussion. If these Great Lakes cultures (Old Copper Complex, Laurentian Archaic, Maritime Archaic) were anything like the Pacific Northwest, as Bruce Bourque and James Tuck have suggested, then woodworking wasn’t peripheral to them, but central. That’d explain not only the hundreds of stone and copper woodworking tools (many comparable in style and durability to anything you’d find in Chalcolithic or Bronze Age Afro-Eurasia), but the stylized versions, too, such as fluted copper adzes, fluted grooved axes and celts, and gouges designed with bear heads.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

ref

AI Overview: Ancient Japanese wood carving, shaped wood using flint, obsidian, or chert tools to create utilitarian objects, tools, and spiritual carvings. The Shigir Idol, discovered in Siberia, is the world’s oldest known wooden sculpture, dated to approximately 11,500–12,500 years ago. Carved from larch wood using stone tools, the originally over 5-meter (16 ft.) tall statue provides profound insights into the spiritual and symbolic life of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. The surface is covered in geometric patterns, including zigzags, chevrons, and herringbone designs. It features seven distinct human-like faces—three on the front, three on the back, and one on top —believed to represent spirits. The carvings may encode a creation story or a map of the spirit world, suggesting a complex belief system. Resembling a totem pole, researchers believe it served as a ritual object, a spirit depiction, or a territorial marker. Ancient North American indigenous artists, particularly along the Northwest Coast, used stone tools to carve cedar wood into spiritual or cultural objects like totem poles and masks. Archaic North Americans used various stone, bone, and shell tools to cut, chop, and shape wood, and some of these wooden objects likely had spiritual or ceremonial significance. While many Archaic wooden artifacts have long since decayed, the use of stone tools to create objects with likely spiritual meaning is well-documented from later periods and can be inferred for the Archaic era as well.

“Totem poles have been suggested before for North America’s Archaic. There’s a section in the 2008 book, Archaic Societies, where an author examining the Midwest’s sites notes how wooden items are severely lacking, which affects accurate interpretations; we know wooden items are crucial for complex-hunter-gatherer-fisher cultures. Totem poles are an item he suggested, even though they’re lacking. Looking further south at Poverty Point, ground-penetrating radar has shown several timber circles, many overlapping each other, suggesting repeated constructions. The earliest known ones down there date to ca. 2400 B.C.E. If archaeologists are right about that site being a gathering place for numerous different tribes, locally and regionally, then perhaps those timbers were totem poles of some kind. As far as I know, we don’t have northeastern of upper Midwestern-style gouges down there, but they’re considered a water-based culture (wetlands everywhere, fish bones and waterbird bones at several sites, close to the Mississippi and its tributaries, literally hundreds of plummets/multi-purpose weights for fish nets).” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“Besides totem poles and this hand-grip gouge, there’s another stylized gouge that had me wondering about bears and tree carvings. In the northeast coast’s stylized gouge region, there’s a gouge with an apparent bear-head carving on its end, with a classic short-channeled bit on the other end. Gouges like these are typically hammered at their end, or hafter, similar to what Larry shows and what I’ve shown in my gouge distribution map. This bear-head gouge has no damage on the head, and the bit shows little wear. To me, it suggests this item was cared for, either for careful carvings or a symbolic piece not used for woodworking. But why the bear head?” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“The northeast is home to many black bears, and they were much more common centuries ago; I imagine they were perhaps even more common during the Archaic. Bears are known for scratching trees. They leave their scents, marking their territory, and sharpening their claws. Cultures around the world, both ancient and modern, have used arborglyphs, which are carvings in living trees, to mark trails, routes to good places (hunting grounds, fishing spots, trading hubs), territories, or more symbolic purposes, such as living totems. With the abundance of stone gouges, and presumably black bears, this bear-head gouge suggests to me a tradition of arborglyphs (tree carvings) of some kind.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

Provided by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

AI Overview: Middle to Late Archaic period (approximately 6000–1000 BCE) bear-head gouge, effigy carved into the handle or end of the tool, was likely used by archaic peoples, particularly within the Maritime Archaic tradition in the northeastern United States and Canada, as a representation of ritual power or spiritual guardianship.

“We see bear symbolism across many northern hunter-gatherer cultures. As far back as the Ertebolle culture in Denmark and Sweden, bear skulls were buried intentionally. This practice continued into the following Funnelbeaker Culture, associated with megaliths. In North America during the Late Archaic (ca. 3000-1000 B.C.E.), bear skull masks appear with the Glacial Kame culture, which covered parts of the Midwest, south of Lake Michigan, and Huron. Later on, during the Hopewell Interaction Sphere, stone figurines with bear-head hooded robes, copper bear claws, and imported bear claws from the Rocky Mountains suggest a strong link between bears and Archaic-Hopewell ritual practices. An interesting motif linking several northern hunter-gatherer cultures is keeping bears as pets or viewing bears as guardians/masters of the forest. This motif, with regional variation, is seen from the Baltic to northern Japan, and even around the Great Lakes. Groups would capture an infant bear and raise it with honor, as if it were a human infant. They’d keep it in a pen and care for it until it reached a certain age. Once there, they release it, and either chase after it or kill it for a ritual feast.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

AI Overview: The Cosmic Hunt is an ancient, widespread myth (spanning Siberia to North America) where hunters pursue a giant bear across the sky, transforming it into the Big Dipper constellation. In Great Lakes/Iroquois legends, this celestial bear, chased by hunters (represented by the handle stars), causes autumn by bleeding on leaves. The myth explains the seasons; the bear is low on the horizon in summer and high in autumn/winter. The bear is highly respected as a “keeper of medicine” and a sacred animal. In some versions, the blood from the wounded celestial bear drips down, turning the leaves of the trees red in the autumn. The bear (bowl of the Big Dipper) is pursued by hunters (handle stars) through the night sky. The myth is part of a larger, shared tradition between Siberian and Native American cultures, particularly Algonquian and Iroquois, likely originating from a common source. Bear mythology in the Great Lakes region, particularly among the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi), centers on the black bear as a sacred, powerful, and familial figure. The most prominent legend explains the formation of the Sleeping Bear Dunes and the nearby Manitou Islands as a grieving mother bear and her two drowned cubs.

• The Legend of Sleeping Bear: A forest fire in Wisconsin drove a mother bear (sometimes named Mishe Mokwa) and her two cubs into Lake Michigan. They swam for days, but the cubs grew exhausted and drowned within sight of the Michigan shore.
• The Transformation: To honor the cubs’ bravery, the Great Spirit (Gitche Manitou) created two islands (North and South Manitou) where they sank. The mother bear climbed a high bluff to wait for them and, out of grief, lay down and was covered by sand, becoming the Sleeping Bear Dune.

“Bear worship is the religious practice of worshipping bears. This variety of animal worship is found in many North Eurasian ethnic religions, such as those of the Sami, Nivkh, Ainu, Basques, Germanic peoples, Slavs, and Finns. There are also a number of deities from Celtic Gaul and Britain associated with the bear. The Dacians, Thracians, and Getians in the Eastern Balkans were observed to worship bears and to celebrate an annual bear dance festival.[citation needed] The bear is featured on many totems throughout northern cultures that carve them. There was a story about a bear mating with a human woman, and producing a male heir, which functions as an ancestor myth to the peoples of the Northern Hemisphere, namely, from North America, Japan, China, Siberia, and Northern Europe.” ref 

“This is another motif linking northern hunting-gathering cultures, and it’s present around the Great Lakes, too; other motifs, such as seeing Alcor as a cooking pot, is present there, too. We already know these northern cultures are linked through DNA, artifact styles (especially stone gouges), artwork (x-ray mammals, boats, solar-headed people, wedge-shaped people), and rituals, such as this bear ceremonialism. Although we can’t know for certain how these Archaic North Americans viewed their world, seeing so much similarity between their themes and other themes from contemporary northern cultures, perhaps we could use those other cultures to help us figure out the Archaic a bit more.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“One of the earliest, serious researchers to notice a northern hunter-gatherer connection was Gutorm Gjessing. He proposed that the striking similarities across most near-Arctic and boreal cultures was from rapid population movements, possibly using kayaks, hide-covered canoes, and dog sleds. His work was largely forgotten after the 1960s, but has seen more interest; several professional publications have come out, including a major BAR International Issue solely about Gjessing’s theories, where he was wrong, and what he got right. Part of his theory is mentioned in the 1987 documentary, The Mystery of the Lost Red Paint People, by Bull Frog Films. Although it’s mentioned in passing (and should have more commentary), the filmmakers interviewed several archaeologists, including one who personally excavated northern Norway sites that produced gouges indistinguishable from North America’s northeastern gouges. I’ve already mentioned some early dates for gouges, roughly 10,000 years ago for southern Japan, 8000 B.C.E. for northern Norway, and 8,000 B.C.E. for North America’s northeast.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“Gouges are an area I’ve spent a lot of time researching, and I was amazed at the similarity (and often identical) appearance of these. Even more interesting is the material from which many of these were made. There are some recent articles from the Baltic talking about greenstone volcanic metatuff, which northern hunter-gatherers and pastoralists valued for some reason. They purposely chose to make many gouges with this material. Over in the Maritime Archaic, we find the same thing. People are intentionally making gouges and adzes with greenstone volcanic metatuff. Like I’ve said before, woodworking gouges are seen across many different cultures, from the Ice Age to the modern period. However, most literature I’ve read views ancient, northern gouges as unique and diagnostic, whether in North America, the Baltic, or Siberia. It’s great how well our research pairs with each other. You show the DNA, cultural groups, their beliefs, and their movements, along with diagrams of sites and artifacts. I’ve focused on cultures, items, and trade networks, mostly, and have only dabbled with mythologies and DNA. I think this will go a long way towards understanding the Archaic period in North America.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

Art/Map by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

Art/Map by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

Art/Map by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

Art/Map by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“For the gouge maps, I had to do work similar to what Monette Bebow-Reinhard did with copper. Nobody had made an all-in-one database of these items, which is somewhat odd because they’re considered diagnostic tools critical for boating cultures; this might be related to the Archaic being the least studied era of North America’s history. Museums each have their own, but they’re all separate. There’s also the large collector community scattered across the U.S. and Canada, and that has its own issues (forgeries being a main one). So, I needed to go through each museum database and plot them onto a map, one by one. Still, my maps don’t have them all. There are some articles about Laurentian gouges and other northeastern gouges that’re only available on microfilm outside of the U.S., or they’re listed together with other heavy woodworking tools rather than being distinct. More than anything, what these maps show are hotspots where one can expect to find stone woodworking gouges.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

Info and pictures provided by CopperViolette @CopperViolette

Arranged by Damien Marie AtHope

My response: A hand grip gouge, seems to me like its use would be fine artistic work, not non-artistic buildings, and not for canoes. It could even relate to making artistic ritual wood masks or totem poles.

AI Overview: An indigenous gouge with a specialized hand grip is a vital tool for carving intricate ritual wood masks and monumental totem poles, particularly among Pacific Northwest cultures. These tools are used on materials like red cedar to create, for example, transformation masks for dances or ancestral figures for poles. Carvers use gouges to shape wood, often creating detailed, textured designs for masks used in ceremonies. Ritual wood masks are created for ceremonies and storytelling, with notable examples including the Kwakwaka’wakw transformation masks (e.g., Whale, Thunderbird), which may feature complex, movable parts. Ritual wood masks are often made representing spirits, animals, and demonstrations of social structure, with some masks designed to be destroyed after use.

AI Overview: Indigenous masks in the Great Lakes region, particularly among the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) and Delaware, are deeply religious, high-symbolism artifacts used to expel or prevent disease. Known as False Face masks, these are often carved from living trees, representing mythological beings in curing rituals and the False Face Society. Masks are carved to represent spirits seen in dreams or that cured illnesses. They feature distorted or exaggerated human-like faces, often painted red (representing the afternoon sun/west) or black/white (morning sun/east), and adorned with animal hair. Traditionally carved from wood, they are used in ceremonies to bring healing, protect the community, and cleanse the area of bad spirits. While historically secretive, these masks represent a vital connection to spiritual, ancestor-based, and therapeutic traditions that continue in some forms today. The Copper Mask Dance is a significant, sacred, and often secretive ritual practiced by indigenous tribes in the Great Lakes region, with deep roots in Mississippian culture and Ojibwa/Ho-Chunk traditions. The dance and masks are utilized to connect with ancestral spirits, ensure the health of the community, and honor the spiritual power of copper, which is often associated with the underwater panther (Mishipeshu) in Ojibwa cosmology. Other types mentioned in broader regional contexts include corn husk masks.

Provided by CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“A fluted copper spud.”

Provided by CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“Maine fluted adzes.”

Provided by CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“Two fluted axes from Wisconsin.”

Provided by CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“A decorated fluted grooved axe.”

“A hint that many gouges were significant social items is their regular appearance in northeastern cemeteries. Practically every Maritime Archaic cemetery, for example, has gouges. These range in size, channel length, and material. The vast majority of gouges, whether found by avocational collectors in stream beds or by professionals excavating cemeteries, show well-done polishing. The bit and end are typically damaged from use, but the body itself is well-made and polished. Walter Brown Smith, commenting on northeastern Maritime Archaic gouges in the 1930s, said they were polished as smooth as a gun barrel. This is meaningful because is suggests, when coupled with what I wrote above, that these tools weren’t secondary, optional tools, but a staple of their toolkit, both in this world and whatever afterlife world they believed in. It’s almost as if they expected to be woodworkers in the afterlife.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“Beyond gouges, fluted axes are another interesting item, because fluted (and even faceted) celts are documented for Wisconsin and the northeast, including the Maritime Archaic. These connections and tool similarities have been noted since at least the 1950s-1970s, but Gale V. Highsmith’s 1985 book, The Fluted Axe, documented hundreds of these items. Hundreds are made of very hard materials, such as gabbaro, dolerite, and even granite. Compared to regular, undecorated grooved axes and celts, these items show unnecessary polish and decoration. A fluted design is fairly simple to make; the person is just removing material in parallel lines, perhaps to reduce the tool’s weight. Others, mainly Gale Highsmith, have suggested decorative functions.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“Similar to the northeast’s well-made and iconic gouges, Wisconsin’s fluted axes suggest an ancient, socially significant woodworking tradition. Both gouges and fluted axes show standardization and semi-standardization, even though they’re all hand-made items. We see the same thing with copper spuds, copper gouges (which are, in most cases, practically identical to stone gouges, including variants with different channel lengths), and copper axes. What that suggests to me is these folks are interacting and trading enough that identical or near-identical tool forms are both practical and necessary, possibly for trust, ritual, or status displays, an early economy not based on money, or a combination of all these (this list isn’t all possibilities, only some). People needed reliable tools they could replace if something happened. After all, you’re going to need a lot of wood to have a copper-working industry that produced literally thousands of nearly identical items, not to mention wood for everything else for daily living, such as drying racks, house frames, cooking/hearth fires, boats (whether dugout or something more complex), fish weirs, handles, among many other things.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

AI Overview: Oldest Dugout Canoes in North America

*A 6,000-year-old: two dugout canoes were found in DeLeon Springs, corresponding to the Middle Archaic period. Many other ancient, prehistoric dugout canoes, some 5,000 years old, have been discovered in Florida lakes and rivers.

*A 5,200-year-old: dugout canoe found in Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, this vessel is the oldest of 16 found in the area, with ages ranging from 5,200 to 700 years old.

*A 4,400-year-old: dugout canoe, discovered in North Carolina, is among the oldest in the region, a well-preserved dugout canoe. While one is 4,400 years old, another notable find in Lake Phelps is a 36-foot vessel, which is the longest known dugout canoe in the southeastern United States.

“Two interesting things to add here. Both Wisconsin and Florida have “canoe parking lots.” At certain lakes, Native Americans stored their canoes by the dozens. This is especially true with Florida, where several canoes are documented for one Lake, and their dates range from the Middle Archaic to past the Late Archaic. Last I checked those dates, I think some are also Hopewell and Mississippian in age, too. Florida is much like Wisconsin with wetlands and lakes; they’re everywhere. And before the U.S. started wetland drainage projects, wetlands used to be all over the Midwest. Some called the Midwest’s wetlands, “the Everglades of the North,” since they rivaled Florida’s Everglades in size, depth, and wildlife. The 1950 U.S. agricultural census map provides a good overview of the extent of wetland drainage. Since there was once a lot more water, including lakes, coupled with their well-developed woodworking tools (of copper and stone), suggests to me a culture reliant on boats, large and small; they likely had different canoes for inland travel and Great Lakes travel. Beyond Wisconsin and Florida, there’s another canoe in Ohio dated to the Late Archaic. This one and several from Florida show designs more in-line with historic Native American canoes, suggesting the building knowledge goes back thousands of years. The Ohio canoe is also large; larger canoes seem more common towards the Great Lakes, suggesting (as mentioned above) different canoes for different purposes, such as these being for bulk transport.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

World’s Oldest Known Dugout Canoes

“A 10,000-year-old: world’s oldest known dugout canoe from a single pine trunk is the Pesse canoe, measuring almost 10 feet, and discovered in the Netherlands, dated between 8040 and 7510 BCE. Crafted from a single pine trunk. There was a question whether such a small boat would be seaworthy, but an exact replica was constructed and successfully paddled by a canoeist, proving that it did, in fact, function as a boat. The boat is also similar in construction to prehistoric canoes found in other countries.” ref

“An 8000-year-old dugout canoe was found by archaeologists in Kuahuqiao, Zhejiang Province, in eastern China. This is the earliest canoe found in Asia.” ref

“A 7,500-year-old: in the Netherlands region of the great rivers Maas, Rhine, and Waal: graves, dating back to between 5500 and 5000 BCE. Judging by the food remains near the grave, the group lived on the safe heights of river dunes while using their canoes to catch pike in the river, in addition to using flint arrows to shoot birds while gathering fruits, vegetables, and nuts.” ref

“A 7,200-year-old: In Denmark a few dugout canoes of linden wood, were unearthed in a large-scale archaeological excavation project in Egådalen, north of Aarhus. They have been carbon dated to the years 5210-4910 BCE.” ref

“A 7,000-year-old: In German, the craft is known as Einbaum (one-tree). In the old Hanseatic town of Stralsund, three log-boats were excavated in 2002. Two of the boats were around 7,000 years old and are the oldest boats found in the Baltic area. The third boat (6,000 years old) was 12 meters (39 ft) long and holds the record as the longest dugout in the region. The finds have partly deteriorated due to poor storage conditions.” ref

“A 6,500 years old: linden wood log-boat of nearly 6 meters (20 ft) were found at Männedorf-Strandbad in Switzerland at Lake Zürich.” ref

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AI Overview: A celt is a prehistoric, ungrooved, wedge-shaped stone or metal tool used primarily as an axe, adze, or chisel for woodworking and clearing. Unlike grooved axes, celts were designed to be securely fitted into a hole in a wooden handle. These polished, durable tools were widely produced from igneous rock, basalt, or flint during the Neolithic period, with variations appearing in North America and across the globe for chopping, carving, and agricultural tasks. Ground stone celts (ungrooved axes) in North America appeared as early as the Middle to Early Archaic period (roughly 9,000–5,000 years ago), with some potential earlier, adze-like forms. These tools were primarily used for woodworking and were created by pecking, grinding, and polishing stone. They differ from earlier grooved axes, which emerged earlier in the Archaic. While often associated with later periods, evidence suggests celts were in use during the Middle or Early Archaic. Celts are wood-cutting tools, often wedge-shaped, designed to be hafted into a handle. Unlike flaked tools, these were shaped by grinding and polishing, often using harder stone, a technique that increased during the Archaic period. Celts are distinguished from adzes, which have an offset cutting edge, and from axes, which have a groove for hafting. Before the proliferation of celts, full-grooved axes were a primary, earlier ground stone tool.

Adena/Hopewell Celts: Groundstone celts common in North American archaeology, these can be rectangular-poll, rounded-poll, or flared.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref

Grooved Axes

AI Overview: In North America, grooved stone axes (9,000–3,000 years old) and specialized adzes were essential, heavy-duty tools used by Indigenous cultures to create dugout canoes by chopping, shaping, and hollowing out logs. These axes, often made from igneous/metamorphic rock, were complemented by adzes—with bits perpendicular to the handle—for carving and smoothing, or gouges for removing burnt wood. Stone tools were common in the Archaic period, while copper “spuds” or fluted-socketed adzes (5000–1500 BCE) were also used for similar woodworking.

“The full grooved axe, the first type of axe developed by the Indigenous peoples of North America, was an essential part of a larger tool kit of ground stone tools that Native North Americans began making during the Archaic period, between 9,000-2,700 years ago. A grooved axe is a large stone tool, one end typically tapered, with a groove around the midsection where a split wooden handle would have been attached or hafted to the stone using animal sinew. Grooved axes were used by Native Americans to aid in the chopping down of trees and splitting wood. It was a necessary woodworking tool in the kit produced and used by Indigenous North Americans. The two grooved axes featured here are considered full grooved axes, meaning that the groove goes completely around the circumference of the tool. They were produced during the Early Archaic period, about 9,000-8,000 years ago. These were the first types of grooved axes produced, later types did not have full grooves, instead the grooves would only go ¾ of the way or only halfway around the tool, likely reflecting changes in how it was hafted to a wooden handle. As opposed to the relatively short amount of time it took to chip an arrowhead or knife blade, grooved axes and other ground stone tools were created by a time-consuming process of grinding and pecking. Using a secondary stone made of a harder material, a tool maker would gradually peck or grind away stone to create the desired shape. This secondary stone is referred to as a hammerstone, another type of tool that is frequently found at Indigenous archeological sites. Sand, or a finer-grained stone, was then used to polish the surface of the finished tool.” ref

“Miniature grooved stone axes range in size from 2½ to 3 ½ inches. They were recovered in central Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, southwestern Virginia, and in the Ohio River Valley region of Indiana and Ohio. Miniature axes should not be confused with “expended” small axes. They are usually delicately and faithfully made ancient ‘reproductions’ of larger types. Some actually show evidence of use-wear on the bit and/or poll, suggesting they may have been utilized as tools. Many others show absolutely no use-wear or damage whatsoever. The miniature axe could have served as a tool for delicate work; could some be “toy” axes made for children, or were they ceremonial or ritualistic axes?” ref 

ref

“The groove on some axes was very expertly made, with raised rims around the boundaries of the groove. Axes were sometimes decorated with parallel pecked lines, referred to as ‘fluted’ axes. Axes without grooves are called ‘celts’ by North American researchers.” ref

“Socketed ‘ Spuds’/Adzes are one of the more distinctive types of Old Copper artifacts. There is a large range in size and style of these artifacts, which may indicate both the time and place of their manufacture. They would have been hafted onto a wooden handle for increased accuracy and efficiency. Nevertheless, the function of these tools was primarily for woodcarving and possibly bark stripping.” ref

“Grooved axes are major woodworking tools used throughout the Archaic; they’re mainly associated with the Shell Mound Archaic and Old Copper Culture between ca. 5200-3500 B.C.E., before spreading outward. There are several styles of grooved axes, including fully-grooved, 3/4-grooved, double-grooved, and fluted. Fluted grooved axes are interesting because they’re more stylized than most ordinary grooved axes, suggesting there was a type of honor or cultural significance for being a woodworking during the Archaic. Some pages will give a date of 7000 B.C.E. for their origin, but I don’t know of any with a confirmed date that early. The closest is a guessed origin date by Gale V. Highsmith in his book, The Fluted Axe. The earliest dates I know about for grooved axes are 5200 B.C.E. with the Shell Mound Archaic, and 5000 B.C.E. with the Modoc Rock Shelter along the Mississippi River.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

“An adze is an ancient and versatile cutting tool similar to an axe, but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel. Adzes have been used since the Stone Age. They are used for smoothing or carving wood in hand woodworking, and as a hoe for agriculture and horticulture. Two basic forms of an adze are the hand adze (short hoe)—a short-handled tool swung with one hand—and the foot adze (hoe)—a long-handled tool capable of powerful swings using both hands, the cutting edge usually striking at foot or shin level. A similar tool is called a mattock, which differs by having two blades, one perpendicular to the handle and one parallel.” ref

“The adze is depicted in ancient Egyptian art from the Old Kingdom onward. Originally, the adze blades were made of stone, but already in the Predynastic Period, copper adzes had all but replaced those made of flint. Stone blades were fastened to the handle by tying, and early bronze blades continued this simple construction. It was not until the later Bronze Age that the handle passed through an eye at the top of the blade. Examples of Egyptian adzes can be found in museums and on the Petrie Museum website. American Northwest coast native peoples traditionally used adzes for both functional construction (from bowls to canoes) and art (from masks to totem poles).” ref

“Northwest coast adzes take two forms: hafted and D-handle. The hafted form is similar in form to a European adze, with the haft constructed from a natural crooked branch, which approximately forms a 60% angle. The thin end is used as the handle, and the thick end is flattened and notched such that an adze iron can be lashed to it. Modern hafts are sometimes constructed from a sawed blank with a dowel added for strength at the crook. The second form is the D-handle adze, which is basically an adze iron with a directly attached handle. The D-handle, therefore, provides no mechanical leverage. Northwest coast adzes are often classified by size and iron shape vs. role. As with European adzes, iron shapes include straight, gutte,r and lipped. Where larger Northwest adzes are similar in size to their European counterparts, the smaller sizes are typically much lighter, such that they can be used for the detailed smoothing, shaping, and surface texturing required for figure carving. Final surfacing is sometimes performed with a crooked knife.” ref

“An adze (or adz) is a woodworking tool, one of several tools used in ancient times to perform carpentry tasks. Archaeological evidence suggests that the first Neolithic farmers used adzes for everything from felling trees to shaping and assembling wooden architecture such as roof timbers, as well as constructing furniture, boxes for two- and four-wheeled vehicles, and walls for subterranean wells. Other essential tools for the ancient and modern carpenter include axes, chisels, saws, gouges, and rasps. Woodworking toolkits vary widely from culture to culture and time to time: the earliest adzes date from the Middle Stone Age period of about 70,000 years ago, and were part of a generalized hunting toolkit. Adzes can be made of a wide variety of materials: ground or polished stone, flaked stone, shell, animal bone, and metal (typically copper, bronze, or iron).” ref

Defining Adzes

“Adzes are generally defined in the archaeological literature as distinct from axes on several bases. Axes are for hewing trees; adzes for shaping wood. Axes are set in a handle such that the working edge is parallel to the handle; the working edge of an adze is set to be perpendicular to the handle. Adzes are bifacial tools with a pronounced asymmetry: they are plano-convex in cross-section. Adzes have a domed upper side and a flat bottom, often with a distinct bevel towards the cutting edge. In contrast, axes are generally symmetrical, with biconvex cross sections. The working edges on both flaked stone types are wider than one inch (2 centimeters). Similar tools with working edges of less than an inch are generally classified as chisels, which can have varied cross sections (lenticular, plano-convex, triangular).” ref

Identifying Adzes Archaeologically

“Without the handle, and despite the literature defining adzes as plano-convex in shape, it can be difficult to distinguish adzes from axes, because in the real world, the artifacts are not bought in a Home Depot but made for a specific purpose and perhaps sharpened or used for another purpose. A series of techniques have been created to ameliorate, but as yet not resolve, this issue. These techniques include: 

• Use-wear: the examination by macroscopic and microscopic techniques of the working edges of a tool to identify striations and nicks that have accumulated over its use-life and may be compared to experimental examples. 
• Plant residue analysis: the recovery of microscopic organic leavings including pollen, phytoliths, and stable isotopes from whatever plant was being worked. 
• Traceology: the examination by macroscopic and microscopic techniques of well-preserved pieces of wood to identify marks left behind by the woodworking process.” ref 

“All of these methods rely on experimental archaeology, reproducing stone tools and using them to work wood to identify a pattern which might be expected on ancient relics.” ref 

Earliest Adzes

“Adzes are among the earliest types of stone tools identified in the archaeological record and recorded regularly in Middle Stone Age Howiesons Poort sites such as Boomplaas Cave, and Early Upper Paleolithic sites throughout Europe and Asia. Some scholars argue for the presence of proto-adzes in some Lower Paleolithic sites—that is, invented by our hominid ancestors Homo erectus.” ref

Upper Paleolithic 

“In the Upper Paleolithic of the Japanese islands, adzes are part of a “trapezoid” technology, and they make up a fairly small portion of the assemblages at such sites as the Douteue site in Shizuoka prefecture. Japanese archaeologist Takuya Yamoaka reported on obsidian adzes as part of hunting toolkits on sites dated approximately 30,000 years ago. The Douteue site stone trapezoid assemblages as a whole were basally hafted and heavily used, before being left behind broken and discarded. Flaked and groundstone adzes are also regularly recovered from Upper Paleolithic sites in Siberia and other places in the Russian Far East (13,850–11,500 years ago), according to archaeologists Ian Buvit and Terry Karisa. They make up small but important parts of hunter-gatherer toolkits.” ref 

Dalton Adzes 

“Dalton adzes are flaked stone tools from Early Archaic Dalton (10,500–10,000 years ago/12,000-11,500 years ago) sites in the central United States. An experimental study on them by U.S. archaeologists Richard Yerkes and Brad Koldehoff found that the Dalton adzes were a new tool form introduced by Dalton. They are very common on Dalton sites, and usewear studies show they were heavily used, made, hafted, resharpened, and recycled in a similar fashion by several groups. Yerkes and Koldehoff suggest that at the transition period between the Pleistocene and Holocene, changes in climate, particularly in hydrology and landscape, created a need and desire for river travel. Although neither Dalton wooden tools or dugout canoes from this period have survived, the heavy use of the adzes identified in the technological and microwear analysis indicates they were used for felling trees and likely manufacturing canoes.” ref 

Neolithic Evidence for Adzes 

“While wood-working—specifically making wooden tools—is clearly very old, the processes of clearing woods, building structures, and making furniture and dugout canoes are part of the European Neolithic set of skills that were required for the successful migration from hunting and gathering to sedentary agriculture. A series of Neolithic wooden-walled wells dated to the Linearbandkeramik period of central Europe have been found and intensively studied. Wells are particularly useful for the study of traceology, because water-logging is known to preserve wood.” ref 

“In 2012, German archaeologists Willy Tegel and colleagues reported evidence for a sophisticated level of carpentry at Neolithic sites. Four very well-preserved eastern German wooden well walls dated between 5469–5098 BCE provided Tegel and colleagues an opportunity to identify refined carpentry skills by scanning high-resolution images and producing computer models. They found that early Neolithic carpenters built sophisticated corner joins and log constructions, using a series of stone adzes to cut and trim the timber.” ref

Bronze Age Adzes

“A 2015 study on Bronze Age use of a copper ore deposit called Mitterberg in Austria used a very detailed traceology study to reconstruct woodworking tools. Austrian archaeologists Kristóf Kovács and Klaus Hanke used a combination of laser scanning and photogrammetric documentation on a well-preserved sluice box found at Mitterberg, dated to the 14th century BCE by dendrochronology. The photo-realistic images of the 31 wooden objects that made up the sluice box were then scanned for tool mark recognition, and the researchers used a workflow segmentation process combined with experimental archaeology to determine that the box was created using four different hand tools: two adzes, an axe, and a chisel to complete the joining.” ref 

Adzes Takeaways

• “An adze is one of several woodworking tools used in prehistoric times to fell trees and construct furniture, boxes for two- and four-wheeled vehicles, and walls for subterranean wells. 
• Adzes were made of a variety of materials, shell, bone, stone, and metal, but typically have a domed upper side and a flat bottom, often with a distinct bevel towards the cutting edge.
• The earliest adzes in the world date to the Middle Stone Age period in South Africa, but they became much more important in the Old World at the time of the emergence of agriculture; and in Eastern North America, to respond to climate change at the end of the Pleistocene.” ref 

Construction of a Dugout Canoe

“Construction of a dugout canoe begins with the selection of a log of suitable dimensions. Sufficient wood must be removed to make the vessel relatively light in weight and buoyant, yet still strong enough to support the crew and cargo. Specific types of wood were often preferred based on their strength, durability, and density. The shape of the boat is then fashioned to minimize drag, with sharp ends at the bow and stern. First, the bark is removed from the exterior. Before the appearance of metal tools, dugouts were hollowed out using controlled fires. The burnt wood was then removed using a Stone Woodworking Gouge/Adze. Another method using tools is to chop out parallel notches across the interior span of the wood, then split out and remove the wood from between the notches. Once hollowed out, the interior was dressed and smoothed out with a knife or adze. More primitive designs keep the tree’s original dimensions, with a round bottom. However, it is possible to carefully steam the sides of the hollow log until they are pliable, then bend to create a more flat-bottomed “boat” shape with a wider beam in the center. For travel in the rougher waters of the ocean, dugouts can be fitted with outriggers. One or two smaller logs are mounted parallel to the main hull by long poles. In the case of two outriggers, one is mounted on either side of the hull.” ref

Not just Human burials, but also Dogs were sometimes buried with Adzes?

Archaic dog burials in the US highlight their ritualized, deep relationship with humans. Dogs were often buried with care, sometimes with grave goods like adzes or projectile points.

Shamanism Origins 34,000 years ago, and the Origin of Dogs as Tutelary Spirits?

• The Afterlife Dog-Guardian:A widespread myth, found from Indo-European traditions to Native American cultures (e.g., Algonquin, Siouan), where a dog guards the path to the underworld.
• Earth Diver Creation Myth: A common belief where a creature dives to the bottom of a primordial ocean to find mud to build the world, shared across Siberia (Chukchi, Yukaghir) and in many Native American traditions (e.g., Ojibway, Blackfoot).
• World Tree (Cosmological Axis): The concept of a central tree connecting the underworld, earth, and sky exists in both Siberian/Indo-European shamanism and some Native American (e.g., Mississippian) cultures.
• Shamanistic Traditions: Both groups historically practiced belief systems centered on the “humanness of all things,” including animal spirits and nature.

Genetic and Historical Context:

• Common Ancestry: DNA, such as “haplogroup Q Y-DNA, from Afontova Gora 2, an ANE population dated to around 17,000 years, belongs to the Y-DNA haplogroup Q1a1-F746, with descendants in the Northwest Territories of modern Canada.” ref Or the 14,000-year-old remains in Siberia show that ANE ancestry flows into both Native American and European populations.
• Migration Route: ANE populations migrated into the Americas, acting as a deep ancestral link between Paleolithic Siberia and the First Americans.
• Shared Ancestry: The Mal’ta Buret’s culture in Siberia is linked to both, explaining the cultural similarities. 

Dog Domestication, Shamanism, and Emerging “Sacred Companion” Mortuary Rituals between 33,000 to 12,000 years ago?

The Mytheme of Ancient North Eurasian Sacred-Dog belief and similar motifs are found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian comparative mythology

ref

“Generalized map of the world, showing the approximate locations of some securely documented dog burials in different places, as known about archaeologically. Securely documented dog burials are known from every major land mass in the world, except Antarctica.” ref

Dogs lived and died with humans 10,000 years ago in the Americas

“A trio of dogs buried at two ancient human sites in Illinois lived around 10,000 years ago, making them the oldest known domesticated canines in the Americas. These are older than the 9,300-year-old remains of dogs eaten by humans at a Texas site, which were the oldest physical evidence of American canines. A new genetic analysis positions the 10,000-year-old Illinois dogs in a single lineage that initially populated North America. That ancestor originated roughly 15,000 years ago, after diverging from a closely related Siberian dog population, as inferred from 71 complete mitochondrial genomes and 7 nuclear genomes of dogs from more than 20 North American sites, ranging in age from 10,000 to 800 years ago.” ref

AI Overview: The oldest confirmed, scientifically dated dog remains in the Americas are approximately 10,150 years old, discovered in Alaska. DNA analysis reveals that these first dogs originated from Siberian ancestors, not from the domestication of North American wolves. Almost all original American dogs vanished after European contact, with only a few genetic traces remaining in some modern dogs and a common canine tumor.

“Native American dogs, or Pre-Columbian dogs, were dogs living with people indigenous to the Americas. Arriving about 10,000 years ago alongside Paleo-Indians, today they make up a fraction of dog breeds that range from the Alaskan Malamute to the Peruvian Hairless Dog. In 2018, a study compared sequences of North American dog fossils with Siberian dog fossils and modern dogs. The nearest relative to the North American fossils was a 9,000 BCE fossil discovered on Zhokhov Island, Arctic north-eastern Siberia, which was connected to the mainland at that time. The study inferred from mDNA that all of the North American dogs shared a common ancestor dated 14,600 BCE, and this ancestor had diverged along with the ancestor of the Zhokhov dog from their common ancestor 15,600 BCE. The timing of the Koster dogs shows that dogs entered North America from Siberia 4,500 years after the first wave of humans did. It is theorized that there were four separate introductions of the dog over the past nine thousand years, in which five different lineages were founded in the Americas.” ref

“In South America, the introduction of the dog took place sometime between 7,500 and 4,500 years ago (5550–2550 BCE). The ancient dog breed of the Americas, the Xoloitzcuintle (or ‘Xolo’ for short), developed into the breed seen today in Mexico at least 3,500 years ago. Findings for dogs in South America get only denser by 3,500 years ago (1550 BCE), but seem to be restricted to agricultural areas in the Andes. The oldest finding of a dog in Brazil is radiocarbon dated to between 1701 and 1526 years ago (249–424 CE), and for the Pampas of Argentina, the oldest is dated as 930 years ago (1020 CE). In Peru, depictions of Peruvian hairless dogs appear around 750 CE on Moche ceramic vessels and continue in later Andean ceramic traditions. At Arroyo Hondo Pueblo in northern New Mexico during the 14th century CE, several coyotes seem to have been treated identically to domestic dogs.” ref 

“In South America, several different cultures sacrificed dogs in religious ceremonies. At the site of Pachacamac in Peru, a popular place of pilgrimage and religious ritual best known for the presence of an oracle, archaeologists uncovered the burials of over a hundred dogs with physical signs of sacrifice. Dogs were sometimes considered to be psychopomps, guides to the afterlife, and were often buried with elite. The Peruvian hairless dog was believed to have supernatural abilities, such as the ability to see spirits, and was seen as a particularly good psychopomp. In Inca times, the dog was also heavily associated with the Moon and was sacrificed during lunar eclipses in order to bring the Moon back. Osages had a clan that shaved their children’s heads in three tails, each to symbolize a canid: dog, coyote, and wolf. In Mexico, some well-preserved and intact dog mummies and other burials with grave goods, such as blankets and food, have been interpreted as pertaining to dogs that were considered to have had familial status. At the Inca site of Machu Picchu, dogs with no evidence that would indicate sacrifice have been found in mortuary contexts with and near individuals of apparent high status.” ref

Art/Map by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

“I don’t have good data (yet) on exact numbers for some regions, but the Shell Mound Archaic has hundreds.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

Art/Map by “Dylan Violette” CopperViolette: @CopperViolette

ref, ref

“Archaic (ca. 8500-1000 B.C.E.) | Stone Woodworking Gouges Archaic stone woodworking gouges are considered diagnostic items for North America’s Lake Forest Tradition, which includes the Old Copper Complex, the Laurentian Archaic, and possibly the Maritime Archaic. The earliest known gouges appear along the east coast by 8000-7000 B.C.E. before spreading inland, into New England, and up into the Canadian Maritimes. The main production phase is thought to stretch between ca. 4500-2000 B.C.E. before fading. A unique category of stylized gouges are known in the region between the Ottawa River and New England, suggesting these items were valued beyond their utilitarian purposes. Supporting this is the high-quality finishes on most gouges, whether or not they’re stylized, suggesting large time investments for pecking, grinding, and polishing these groundstone tools. After the Archaic period, cultures in the northeast stopped using groundstone gouges almost entirely, with later appearances likely being repurposed, older gouges. Sources used for this map are included in the map’s lower left corner.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

My response: “South Texas Plains “adzes” and “gouges” are found almost everywhere in the region. Not only are they geographically widespread, but various forms from before 10,000 years ago onward.” ref 

“Yes, gouges have been found across North America, but these are chipped stone gouges, not groundstone, like in the northeast. All North American gouges I’ve looked at beyond the northeast are crude and look expediently made. The gouges in this map are considered unique because of their shape, style, and quality; most are highly polished and smooth. The numbers (most made between 4500-2000 B.C.E.), extent, and quality all suggest a well-developed woodworking tradition, possibly tied to socially significant boating cultures (such as swordfish hunting in the Gulf of Maine) with a devotion to complex woodworking. This gouge style, although unique to the northeast in North America, can also be found in scattered spots along the Amur River in Asia, parts of Central and western Siberia, and hundreds around the Baltic. The earliest channeled gouges I know about are in southern coastal Japan, northern coastal Norway, and North America’s northeast coast; these all appear between 10,000 and 7500 B.C.E. The style could have originated in Siberia before spreading outward, because it seems linked to red ochre, boat rock art, and mammal rock art (“x-ray” or totemic scenes).” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

My response: “Flaked and groundstone adzes are also regularly recovered from Upper Paleolithic sites in Siberia and other places in the Russian Far East (13,850–11,500 years ago).” ref

“Groundstone adzes are another tool type regularly found in the northeast. Some are basic, others are more stylized with grooves and faceted bodies. Similar to groundstone gouges, these seem related to Northern cultures living in post-glacial landscapes (such as northeast North America, the Baltic region, and parts of Siberia). They’re more widespread than this, but these regions are where most cluster. Cultures producing these and groundstone gouges relied on boats, as seen in the Baltic’s rock art, the Altai region’s rock art, and the Peterbough site in southeast Ontario. Vastokas and Vastokas gave a tentative date of 500-1100 C.E. for that site, but I seriously question that. They said a pottery fragment and similar Algonquin art suggest that date, but the site also produced Laurentian materials (which cluster in that region, too). The site has way more in common with older, northern hunter-gatherer artwork (wedge figures, people with solar heads, boats with sun glyphs and moose/deer/elk head bows, etc.), suggesting a Middle-Late Archaic date, although the site does show some later artwork, too; it’s multi-cultural.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

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My response: Do you feel Groundstone adzes are an evolved form of the Dalton adze in the Middle Mississippi Valley of North America, associated with Late PaleoIndian or Early Archaic societies dating from 12,000–11,500 to 10,500–10,000 years ago?

“They very well could be. Dalton adzes resemble early ground stone adzes. There seems to be a migration up the Atlantic coast between 8000 B.C.E. and 4500 B.C.E., linked to groups participating in regional interaction networks. These are associated with Morrow Mountain points, and many are made of quartz. The preference for quartz is carried up the coast and is seen with later Maritime Archaic groups and Laurentian groups, too. It gets trickier, though, because Maritime Archaic adzes were influenced by the OCC (peripheral groups copying copper forms into stone) and folks living in Labrador before Maine’s Maritime Archaic branch got started. There are multiple influences, but Dalton’s could be an original version.” – CopperViolette @CopperViolette

ref, ref

Dalton Auriculate AKA: Dalton Fishtail

“The Dalton point is most commonly found in the mid to lower Mississippi River valley and into the Tennessee River Valley.  This point is found with decreased frequency in the Ohio River Valley and into the eastern United States and southeastern Canada.  The northern distribution of the map above includes the common distribution of the Hi-Lo point.  It has been suggested that the Dalton point does not extend into these areas, but instead represents a variation of the Hi-Lo point.” ref

New tools, new human niches: The significance of the Dalton adze and the origin of heavy-duty woodworking in the Middle Mississippi Valley of North America

Highlights

• Highly mobile Clovis foragers became localized, seasonally mobile Dalton groups.
• Dalton settlers used new tools to create new human niches.
• A new tool, the Dalton adze, was used to fell trees and make dugout canoes.
• Dugout canoes improved Dalton subsistence, ritual, trade, and communication systems.

“Abstract: Innovations in tool technology during the early Holocene in the North American midcontinent are related to construction of a new human niche focusing on woodlands, water travel, and improved aquatic and terrestrial resources. Production and use of early Holocene Dalton adzes and other tools from sites and caches exemplify these adaptations. Subsistence remains are not abundant, but microwear and technological analyses of flaked stone tools can be used to infer production of dugout canoes and document trends that reflect new sustainable and resilient lifeways and complex social networks. The functions of tools from Dalton sites and tool caches in Illinois and Arkansas are contrasted with typical Clovis tools. Technological and microwear analyses reveals that the Dalton adze was made and used for heavy-duty woodworking—felling trees and likely for manufacturing dugout canoes. Dalton toolkits are highly formalized, consisting of adzes, scrapers, awls, and points used both as projectiles and knives.” ref

“Large distinctive Sloan points were exchanged within emerging Dalton social networks. Dalton toolkits, often considered late PaleoIndian, are part of an Early Archaic horizon. New tools helped Dalton groups to create new niches as they settled into new woodland and riverine landscapes and laid the foundation for later Archaic and Woodland socio-economic systems. Trends in the production and use of lithic tools are correlated with shifts in subsistence and settlement patterns, ideology, and social organization at times when new human niches are constructed. Niche construction is the process whereby organisms do not passively adapt to conditions in their environment, but actively modify their own and other species’ evolutionary niches.” ref

“For example, when new flaked stone tools like sickles, axes, adzes, chisels, and hoes appear, they are prehistoric cultural markers for the creation of new agricultural niches. It is evident that, along with fire and the plow, prehistoric stone axes and adzes¹ transformed Old World landscapes during the emergence of agriculture. However, in Eastern North America, hafted heavy-duty woodworking tools are much older than farming. Heavy-duty woodworking tools are flaked stone or ground stone axes and adzes with extensive and intensive edge-damage, impact fractures, and striations that match the macrowear and microwear patterns on experimental stone tools that were used to fell trees, split logs, and hollow-out dugout canoes. Microwear analysis has shown that heavy-duty traces can be distinguished from light woodworking wear traces. Edge damage on experimental adzes and chisels used to smooth and plane wood was minimal, impact fractures were rare, and wood polish and striations were less developed on the light woodworking tools. In Eastern North America, the oldest woodworking tools are flaked stone adzes associated with Early Archaic Dalton sites dating to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition.” ref

“Ground stone axes and adzes were manufactured later in the Archaic and Woodland periods. We propose that when the function of distinctive Dalton adzes and other tools in Dalton tool kits can be determined with microwear analysis they can be used as cultural markers for the construction of a new human niche in the Middle Mississippi Valley (MMV) during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. The MMV extends from the mouth of the Illinois River to the mouth of the Arkansas River. Dalton groups are classified as late PaleoIndian or Early Archaic societies that date to 10,500–10,000 years ago, or 12,000–11,500 years ago. We view Dalton as an Early Archaic horizon that marks the extent of the new human niche that once established, set the stage for later Archaic and Woodland adaptations.” ref

“In the North American midcontinent, the transition from Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene climates and landscapes was abrupt and of great magnitude. Accordingly, it is important to understand how foragers adjusted to dramatic changes in landforms, hydrology, climate, flora, and fauna during this transition. Worldwide changes in subsistence patterns and social organization at this time have been described as examples of a Broad Spectrum Revolution (BSR), and usually are interpreted with optimal foraging theory (OFT) models. However, events during this time (the beginning of the Early Archaic period) in the MMV do not seem to fit BSR OFT patterns since there is little evidence for resource depletion, environmental deterioration, or population pressure. In places where environment, climate, and resource availability improved, but populations did not increase significantly, Zeder (2012) found that niche construction theory (NCT) provided a more appropriate framework for examining subsistence and settlement changes.” ref

“A NCT model for resilient and sustainable subsistence systems in the MMV during the Middle and Late Holocene is articulated by Smith (2009). Until around CE 900, prehistoric bands and tribes lived as mobile foragers and cultivators who shaped the landscape by clearing forests and improving and expanding the habitat of the plants and animals that they exploited. These researchers argue that this MMV niche was created during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition by Early Archaic Dalton groups settling into the region. The Archaic subsistence and settlement practices that were established then persisted (with modification) for thousands of years. In another discussion, Smith and Zeder (2013) found that across the globe significant human ecosystem engineering and niche construction are not evident in the archaeological record until the end of the Pleistocene. For them, the beginning of the Holocene epoch also marks the beginning of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, which is characterized by human modification of the global environment.” ref

“While these researchers agree that, in general, the earliest significant human niche construction begins in the early Holocene (or early Anthropocene), we suggest that in the MMV, it is not limited to the initial domestication of plants. Rather, we argue that the appearance of the Dalton adze, a standardized heavy-duty woodworking implement that is a common element of Early Archaic toolkits, marks an important step in the routine utilization and modification of woodland habitats and resources in the MMV. Microwear analysis is used to document activities like tree-felling and production of perishable dugout canoes³ with adzes. It is also likely that controlled use of fire was used in this ecosystem engineering.” ref

“Following Hayden and Gargett (1988), who note that the appearance of specialized tools and expanded toolkits denote increased processing costs and new exploitation strategies, we propose that the regular construction and use of dugout canoes by Dalton groups greatly facilitated human niche construction in the MMV and across the Eastern Woodlands. Dugout canoes opened up Midwestern and Southeastern waterways for travel, transport, and foraging, as did bark and skin watercraft on more northern water bodies. The Dalton adze, as the first standardized heavy-duty woodworking tool in the North American midcontinent, marks the beginning of new long-lived lifeways focused on woodlands and waterways.” ref

“The Pleistocene-Holocene boundary is “formally charted” at 11,650 years ago, which is the end of the Younger Dryas/Greenland Stadial 1 (GS-1), an anomalous cooling episode that interrupts postglacial warming. Information on climate, vegetation, and fauna during this time are incomplete, but, as glaciers retreated northward and meltwater discharge was reduced, a Late Pleistocene landscape with few modern analogs changed to one that we would recognize today. The Mississippi River shifted from braided to meandering stream morphology, with extensive wetlands and backwater lakes. Expansion of deciduous forests coincided with the appearance seasonally available and abundant birds, fish, and terrestrial game. Dalton groups reacted actively to the changes in climate and environment by developing new technologies and adaptive strategies.” ref

“The boundary between the PaleoIndian and Archaic periods is usually placed at 10,000 years ago, which would be between 11,700 and 11,500 years ago, a time when there is a major “plateau” in the ¹⁴C calibration curves. The older calibrated age in this interval is at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary (see above). In the MMV, Early Archaic adaptations really begin 300–500 years earlier, 10,500 years ago, or 12,000 years ago, with the Dalton horizon, which extended from east Texas to North Carolina, and marked the emergence of lifeways that developed and persisted for the next 7000 years.” ref

“During the late Pleistocene, highly mobile Clovis groups in the midcontinent travelled long distances overland from one river valley or lake basin to another to intercept migrating herds of caribou or to exploit concentrations of large game at favored locations. In discussions of Clovis and Dalton lifeways, continuity is often emphasized. Efforts to replace “big- game hunter” images of first North Americans with “generalized forager” patterns similar to later Archaic subsistence practices downplay innovations in toolkits, settlements, and subsistence practices across the Dalton horizon. As Bar-Yosef (2017) noted, if there really was cultural continuity during climate changes, ancient toolkits should not change.” ref

“In the Dalton case, there appears to be some cultural continuity, but toolkits were modified to cope with significant climate and landscape changes. For example, Clovis lithic assemblages typically have many more end scrapers than Dalton or other Early Archaic assemblages, but far fewer bifacial tools.⁴ Bifacial adzes, and Dalton, Thebes, St. Charles and Hardin⁵ points that are beveled, serrated, and routinely recycled for other tasks, are typical of Early Archaic societies, but not of PaleoIndians. In cases like this, Bar-Yosef stated that archaeologists must demonstrate why new tools were better suited for dealing with new conditions. These researchers propose that new tool types were needed to help construct a new human niche during the Dalton horizon.” ref

“Because Dalton subsistence remains are infrequent and poorly preserved, and detailed information on climate, vegetation, and fauna is not always available, technological and functional changes in flaked stone tools are examined and microwear analysis are used as means to reconstruct landscape modification activities like tree-felling and production of perishable objects (like dugout canoes). One way of investigating how ancient people responded to environmental changes is to examine changes in the form and function of their stone tools, the composition of their toolkits, and their utilization of lithic raw material sources. In the Dalton case, we present evidence that new tools and toolkits were needed to create new niches and a new adaptive bauplan⁷ in the MMV. The Dalton settlement and subsistence bauplan was closer to a “collector” settlement system with base camps and special purpose sites, rather than a more mobile “forager” pattern.” ref

“New tools were used to extend and improve the habitats of plants and animals that were exploited for food and fiber and to build sturdy, reliable watercraft needed for travel up and down rivers to obtain these resources. We propose that the Dalton adze was a standardized heavy-duty woodworking tool, used to make dugout canoes, which were a crucial adaptive element in niche construction along inland waterways across the Midwest and Southeast. With dugout canoes, Native Americans developed intricate systems of travel, transport, and resource exploitation. Newsom and Purdy (1990), for example, state that “Canoes were pack animals but they did not need to be fed.” The role played by dugout canoes in shaping adaptive strategies in the Eastern Woodlands has been compared to the role played by horses in the development of the historic tribes on the Great Plains.” ref

“Discoveries of over 100 preserved dugout canoes inspired several canoe replication and history of watercraft projects. Ethnohistoric charring and scraping methods with stone adzes (and shell tools) illustrated by DeBry and White and described by Swanton were used in the replications. While no tool marks were identified on prehistoric canoes found in Florida, Wheeler et al., (2003) conclude that the same historically documented methods were also used on preserved Middle and Late Archaic dugout canoes.” ref

“Manufacturing canoe replicas requires 350–850 h of burning, scraping, and shaping with adzes – a substantial investment of time and labor. Dynamic stability experiments with models, and “trial runs” on rivers with full-sized replicas showed that dugout canoes were sturdy, stable, reliable watercraft. Wheeler et al. (2003) described 6000-year-old preserved Middle Archaic dugout canoes, but many suggest that the oldest dugout canoes would date to the Early Archaic or even Paleoindian periods.” ref

“Middle and Late Archaic examples from SE North America made from fire-hollowed logs of mainly cypress and pine were as large and as well-built as Late Prehistoric and Historic dugouts, and their sophisticated design indicates that canoes had been manufactured and used in earlier periods. While there are no preserved examples of Dalton horizon dugout canoes that we know of, we argue that they were made with Dalton adzes and were key elements in early Holocene niche construction. Support for this argument is drawn from stone tool use wear, site locations, and patterns of chert acquisition.” ref

Conclusions

“Bifacial adzes commonly found on Dalton sites mark the origin of a heavy-duty woodworking tradition that developed during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene in the MMV, when changes in hydrology and landscapes, created the need and desire for river travel and exploitation of new riverine habitats and resources. Although wooden tools and dugout canoes have not survived, flaked stone adzes were made, hafted, used, resharpened, and recycled in a similar fashion by Dalton groups.” ref

AI Overview: Groundstone adzes and gouges are ancient, durable woodworking tools shaped by pecking and grinding (rather than flaking) hard stone like basalt or nephrite, common in Archaic and Neolithic toolkits. Adzes have a flat, beveled blade for shaping convex surfaces, while gouges feature a hollowed, scoop-like channel for concave work. These tools were essential for shaping timber and were often hafted, with some, like the Polynesian adzes, being highly prized items. 

Key Aspects of Groundstone Tools

• Adze Function: Used primarily for woodworking (carving canoes, masks, shields), these tools are set at a right angle to the shaft, acting like a modern plane or hoe.
• Gouge Function: Designed specifically for hollowing out wood, such as in the interior, concave surfaces of a dugout canoe.
• Manufacturing: These tools are shaped by abrasion (grinding with water and sand) and pecking, which allows for a smoother edge and easier, more precise resharpening compared to flaked stone.
• Material: Often made from hard materials such as jadeite, nephrite, or granitic stone to withstand the stress of chopping.
• Significance: Found globally in archaeological sites, particularly dating back to the Archaic period (9,000–2,700 years ago in North America), indicating sophisticated, heavy-duty woodworking. 

Getting a handle on ground stone: a technological analysis of the ground stone axes, adzes, and gouges in the George Frederick Clarke collection

“Abstract: This research project is based on the technological analysis of a selection of edged, heavy ground stone tools (i.e., axes, adzes, gouges) in the George Frederick Clarke Collection; a private artifact assemblage acquired and curated by the University of New Brunswick. In this research, I use attribute analysis to better understand the linkages between artifact morphology, hafting, tool function, and human behavior. Three key components are offered in this research: 1) the development of a classification scheme for the ground stone axes, adzes, and gouges at the center of this research; 2) the identification of possible haft types for these artifacts, and; 3) the integration of regional data through which interpretations of tool function and human behavior are made possible. As is shown in the research, inferences based on morphology and hafting allow archaeologists to interpret a formerly inaccessible (i.e., due to organic decomposition) component of ground stone tools. I suggest that biconvex tools would have been secured in bound or socketed hafts, whereas plano-convex tools would have been secured in elbow or socketed-elbow hafts, and that depending on the stone/haft orientation, these tools would have been swung differently by the user. With regards to chronology, the research corroborates the dominant interpretation on the Maritime Peninsula that technological changes amongst edged, heavy ground stone tools seem to occur around the same time as shifts in heavy woodworking/birch bark technologies. I conclude that in addition to excavation, future research into use-wear, petrography, and morphology would bring forth new interpretations of a commonly under-studied Pre-Contact technology on the Maritime Peninsula.” ref

AI Overview: In North America, adzes emerged as specialized woodworking tools during the transition from the late Paleoindian to the Early Archaic period (approximately 8000–1000 BCE). They were essential for the “niche construction” of ancient cultures, allowing them to adapt to expanding hardwood forests by felling trees and carving complex wooden objects. 

Key Characteristics and Usage

• Hafting: Unlike axes, where the blade is parallel to the handle, an adze’s cutting edge is mounted perpendicularly to the shaft.
• Design: Most archaic stone adzes are “planoconvex” (flat on one side and curved on the other) with a single-beveled bit, resembling a modern hoe or chisel.
• Functions:
• Canoe Making: Hollowing out logs to create dugout canoes for river travel.
• Woodworking: Shaping wooden bowls, house posts, containers, and tools.
• Land Clearing: Felling trees to manage forest environments. 

Evolution of Adze Types

• Dalton Adzes (Early Archaic): Often considered the first “standardized” heavy-duty woodworking tool, these were typically bifacially flaked and are common at sites like the Sloan site in Arkansas.
• Hardstone & Grooved Adzes (Middle to Late Archaic): As technology advanced, people began using pecking and grinding techniques to create adzes from hard igneous rocks. Some featured 3/4 or full grooves for more secure fastening to handles.
• Old Copper Complex (Late Archaic): In the Great Lakes region, some adzes (sometimes called “spuds”) were fashioned from native copper rather than stone. 

Regional Variations

• Northeast/New England: Known for elaborate half-grooved adzes and “trihedral” forms.
• Southeast: Evidence from sites like Windover, Florida, includes rare examples of shell adzes preserved in wet environments.
• Pacific Northwest: While the “Archaic” terminology varies there, indigenous carvers have used stone and eventually metal-bladed adzes for millennia to create totem poles and masks. 

AI Overview: Archaic stone woodworking gouges are 4,000–9,000-year-old ground-stone tools, featuring a concave channel or “scoop” bit, used primarily for hollowing wood to create items like dugout canoes. Often crafted from hard materials like basalt or granite, these hafted tools were prominent in the Maritime Archaic culture. These tools were essential for maritime, forest-adapted cultures, with their usage requiring periodic resharpening. These tools were, for the most part, designed to be hafted (attached to a handle) rather than used as hand-held tools. They were frequently found in regions with rich, old-growth wood resources, with high concentrations in the Northeast United States, such as Maine. 

Key details about archaic stone gouges

• Function: Unlike flat-edged adzes, gouges have a curved, hollowed-out, or “v-shaped” bit designed to carve concave wood surfaces.
• Design & Manufacture: These tools were not typically flaked, but rather pecked and ground into shape. They often feature a beveled, steep-angled working end, with some exhibiting “full channels” along the body.
• Hafting: They were designed to be hafted (attached to a handle) rather than hand-held.
• Origin: Highly prevalent in New England, specifically Maine, where they are linked to the Maritime Archaic, a culture specialized in deep-sea fishing.
• Period: Primarily associated with Archaic Period sites, with specific examples noted in the Laurentian tradition and the Maritime Archaic culture (4000-2000 BC).
• Variation: They range from large, 15-inch specimens to smaller, more specialized tools, with some being double-bitted. 

ref

Ground Stone Tools?

“In archaeology, ground stone is a category of stone tool formed by the grinding of a coarse-grained tool stone, either purposely or incidentally. Ground stone tools are usually made of basalt, rhyolite, granite, or other cryptocrystalline and igneous stones whose coarse structure makes them ideal for grinding other materials, including plants and other stones. The adoption of ground stone technology is associated closely with the Neolithic, also called the New Stone Age. The Stone Age comes from the three-age system developed by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. In the Levant, ground stones appear in Mesolithic 2 (Natufian). In prehistoric Japan, ground stone tools appear during the Japanese Paleolithic, possibly predating adoption elsewhere in the Neolithic by 25,000 years.” ref

 “When making the head of an axe out of stone, the piece would be made so it could be hafted. In order to have the stone hafted onto a larger piece, like wood or bone, the ground stone may have at least two notches ground out of one side of the stone, making grooves for the hafting material to lie inside. These grooves would ensure that the stone would not move when struck with a large force. Tough hide would then be wound around the handle and inside the grooves, binding the ground stone and the handle together. Ground stones were often used as dinnerware. Using large stones, lithic reduction would be done for long periods of time to create bowls and pots for food. Jewelry, beads, ear spools, and other decorative ground stones were a sign of high status due to the time and effort needed to make pieces of such small size and detail.” ref

“When mashing up seeds and leaves into powders, rounded and smooth ground stones would be used inside a stone bowl. This pair of tools is called a mortar and pestle. The material would be placed into the mortar, and the pestle would be moved and pressed into the mortar to grind the material into a fine powder. This process could be used for medicine and cooking. The mortar and pestle are still used today for many cooking recipes. Once shaped into an active (making the action, e.g. handstones) or passive (receiving the action, e.g. slab) tool, the stone is used to process a large range of products. At the end of its life, the stone can be recycled – either reused as a ground stone, used as a construction stone, or discarded.” ref

AI Overview: The oldest known chipped stone adzes, designed for woodworking and shaping timber, date back to the Middle Stone Age, approximately 70,000 years ago. Early edge-ground, stone-based adzes and axes, signifying advanced woodworking, were produced in Australia over 40,000 years ago, and in Japan between 32,000 and 38,000 years ago. Ancient adzes typically featured a stone blade (or shell) fastened to a wooden handle, used for tasks like carving wood and making canoes. 

• Earliest Evidence (approx. 70,000 years ago): Adzes were part of early, generalized hunting toolkits, appearing in Middle Stone Age sites, including those featuring Howiesons Poort technologies.
• Pleistocene Ground Tools (30,000+ years ago): The oldest edge-ground stone tools, which functioned similarly to modern adzes for tree-felling, have been found in Japan (ca. 30,000 years ago).
• Regional Variations:
• Australia: Edge-ground axes/adzes dating to over 40,000 years ago.
• China: Polished adzes found in the Bailiandong site, dating from 19,000–21,000 years ago.

AI Overview: The earliest known heavy-duty woodworking adzes in North America are the Dalton adzes, which date back to the Early Archaic period, approximately 10,500 to 10,000 years ago (12,000–11,500 years ago). These flaked stone tools, often called “turtleback scrapers,” were used by the Dalton culture in the central U.S. for cutting, felling trees, and making dugout canoes.

Key Details About Early North American Adzes:

• Time Period: 10,500–10,000 years ago (Early Archaic).
• Location: Found in the central United States, particularly around the Mississippi Valley (e.g., the Sloan site in Arkansas and the Olive Branch site in Illinois).
• Appearance: They are generally 10 to 15 cm long, D-shaped in cross-section (flat on one side, humpbacked on the other), and made from local chert.
• Function: Used for heavy woodworking, such as shaping wooden bowls and dugout canoes.
• Later Developments: While Dalton adzes are the oldest, later Archaic periods (c. 3000–1000 BCE) saw the development of more refined, ground stone adzes, including grooved, faceted, and humped, as seen in the Old Copper complex in the Great Lakes region. 

AI Overview: Dalton adzes are Early Archaic (10,500–10,000 years ago) chipped stone, woodworking tools from the central US, typically measuring 10–15 cm with a D-shaped, “turtleback” profile. Used for heavy-duty tasks like felling trees and carving, these tools often exhibit wood polish and were essential for creating dugout canoes, marking a major technological shift in the region. 

Key Characteristics and Features:

• Shape: Generally triangular or trapezoidal with a steep, beveled cutting edge (bit) at an angle of 55–65 degrees.
• Structure: “Turtleback” design—flat on one side (ventral) and humpbacked on the other (dorsal).
• Material: Frequently made from durable materials like Burlington chert.
• Function: Used as a woodworking tool, likely hafted perpendicular to a handle, for chopping, adzing, and scraping wood.
• Wear Patterns: Studies show heavy polish on the bit and edges, indicating high-intensity use, sometimes accompanied by charcoal residue. 

Significance:

• Earliest Woodworking Tool: Considered the oldest heavy-duty woodworking tool in the Midcontinent North America, signifying a shift in environmental adaptation by the Dalton people.
• Dugout Canoes: The tool’s design and wear patterns strongly suggest its use in constructing dugout canoes, which were vital for riverine travel.
• Evolution of Tools: They represent a specialized component of the Dalton toolkit, which included projectile points, scrapers, and knives, reflecting a “collector” pattern of resource exploitation.
• Site Context: Commonly found at Dalton sites, such as the Sloan site in Arkansas, which is considered the earliest recognized cemetery in the New World. 

Dalton Period

“The Dalton Period extends from 10,500 to 9,900 radiocarbon years ago (circa 8500 to 7900 BCE), during which there existed a culture of ancient Native American hunter-gatherers (referred to as the Dalton people) who made a distinctive set of stone tools that are today found at sites across the middle of the United States. The name “Dalton” was first used in 1948 to refer to a style of chipped stone projectile point/knife. The Dalton point was named after Judge Sidna Poage Dalton, who had found numerous Dalton sites in central Missouri. Evidence of the Dalton culture has been found throughout the Mississippi River Valley. As Dalton points were found in different regions of the mid-continent, they were given different names, such as Holland, Meserve, Greenbrier, Colbert, Hardaway, and Breckenridge. Excavations at the Brand and Sloan sites and surface collections of many other sites in northeast Arkansas provide a wealth of information about the Dalton culture in northeast Arkansas. The internationally famous Sloan site in Greene County is a Dalton Period cemetery and the oldest documented cemetery in the western hemisphere. Studies of stone tools from Arkansas’s Dalton sites have provided many insights into the lives of these hunter-gatherers during the transition from the last ice age to the modern era.” ref

“The Dalton Period occurred during the transition from the last ice age to the beginning of the Holocene (Recent) age. By the beginning of the Dalton Period, much of the landscape in Arkansas was covered in trees and grasses, and the sandy braided stream terraces of the Mississippi Delta were dominated by oak and hickory forests. During the Dalton period, sugar maple, hornbeam, beech, and walnut covered the uplands, and ash, bald cypress, and other temperate hardwoods grew along sloughs and terraces in the bottomlands. Dalton people probably had knowledge of a wide range of plant species that were edible or could be used as medicines. Some of the important native plants include persimmon, greenbrier, pokeweed, cattail, amaranth, dock, lamb’s quarters, wild onion, and a wide variety of berries, fruits, and nuts. Based on the density of Dalton artifacts and sites, Arkansas was probably a very rich hunting and fishing ground during the Dalton period: elk, bear, white-tailed deer, raccoon, rabbit, squirrels, and other small mammals were abundant. Although direct evidence is lacking, it is likely that birds, waterfowl, amphibians, reptiles, and fish would have been excellent sources of protein and relatively easy to capture, especially in the Delta region of the Mississippi River Valley.” ref

“Dalton people continued using most of the stone tool types that their Paleoindian ancestors used: spear points that also served as cutting tools, as well as flake tools (end scrapers, side scrapers, and gravers) usually made from flint and shaped by flaking pieces off a larger core. Several tools that first appear during the Dalton period include the chipped stone drill/awl and adze, the shaft abrader, and edge-abraded cobbles. The most distinctive item in the Dalton stone toolkit, the Dalton point, was used not only to penetrate game like white tailed deer but also to cut and saw meat, hide, wood, and other materials. Dalton points were generally lanceolate (leaf-shaped) in outline. The blade portion of the point was sometimes serrated, similar to the modern bread knife. The bottom, or haft, portion of the Dalton point was made to be concave at the base and tapered so that it would fit into a handle or a spear shaft. As Dalton points were re-sharpened, they began to exhibit an obvious bevel on opposing faces of the blade. This ingenious re-sharpening technique extended the life of the Dalton spear/knife. Archaeologists have documented the specific steps taken in manufacturing and maintaining Dalton spear points and the recycling of Dalton points into other tools, such as burins, end scrapers, and perforators/drills.” ref

“The Dalton adze is the earliest known heavy-duty woodworking tool in the archaeological record for North America. Initially referred to as “turtleback scrapers” because of their shape—flat on the bottom and humpbacked on the top—Dalton adzes may have been hafted like modern adzes, in which the cutting blade is perpendicular to the haft or handle. By comparing the wear traces caused by the use of modern replica adzes and wear traces that remain on ancient adzes, researchers have demonstrated that those from the Sloan site were used to chop and cut charred wood. This suggests that Dalton people could have made dugout canoes to travel the local rivers of the middle of the United States. Adzes are also useful for chopping down trees, making grave markers, house posts, wooden containers, as well as scraping and stretching hides. Cobbles of quartzite and other rock types were used as anvils for cracking open nuts, splitting small chert cobbles, and preparing the edges of stone tools. Sandstone was the preferred material for spear shaft abraders. Small exhausted chert cores called pièces esquillés (scaled pieces) were used to peck grooves or circular pockets into less resistant rocks to form such tools as the shaft abrader and anvil. Bone tools are very rarely recovered from Dalton period archaeological deposits. A single-eyed needle made of bone was recovered from Graham Cave in Missouri. Dalton people likely used a wide variety of perishable materials (bone, plant, hide, sinew), but these are very rare finds in most archaeological contexts.” ref

“Subsistence technology includes all of the material resources and knowledge involved in gathering and preparing the materials necessary to make clothing, shelter, and food. Dalton subsistence involved a great variety of perishable materials that typically do not survive in the archaeological record. Direct evidence includes food remains associated with artifacts, residues on tools, and isotopic ratios of food types in human skeletal tissue. Indirect evidence includes the shape and size of the tools themselves, residues on the tools, and wear traces on tools from their use. From the stone tools they left behind, it is apparent that Dalton people spent their time hunting and working wood and hides into shelters and clothing, although the actual shelters or clothing have not yet been discovered. To date, there have been no Dalton sites excavated in Arkansas with preserved animal or plant remains, and chemical analyses of skeletal remains from the Sloan site was not possible due to the poorly preserved nature of bone. Deer, nuts, waterfowl, fish, turkey, small mammals (rabbits, squirrels, and raccoon), nuts, berries, and fruits were available in Arkansas and were probably important dietary resources for Dalton Period communities. Although such evidence is lacking in Arkansas, deposits from the Big Eddy site in Missouri and Dust Cave in Alabama suggest that the Dalton diet did include plant foods. Recent evidence from one archaeological site in Missouri suggests that nuts, berries, and possibly even some species of seeds were likely consumed during the Dalton period.” ref

“Over 750 Dalton sites have been recorded in northeast Arkansas alone. The few most thoroughly investigated sites in Arkansas include the Brand site in Poinsett County and the Sloan site in Greene County. One model suggests that Dalton people may have concentrated their hunting and gathering activities within circumscribed areas west of Crowley’s Ridge. Dan and Phyllis Morse hypothesize that Dalton settlements include base settlements, food gathering camps, quarries, and cemeteries. They called these circumscribed areas “apparent band territories.” Dalton people probably journeyed to habitats with such resources as stone for making tools; organic materials for clothing, footwear, and containers; and plant resources that furnished essential fats, vitamins, and minerals—all essential for survival. Dalton groups likely planned specific rendezvous to find sexual partners, trade, and communicate skills and accomplishments. The Brand site is a hunting camp where people scraped hides, worked wood into tool handles and other objects, and refurbished their stone toolkits. The Lace site, located in the center of the L’Anguille River basin in Poinsett County, may have been a large base camp. It has been mostly destroyed by modern agricultural practices. The Sloan site, located in the Cache River Basin, was a place that Dalton groups visited to bury their dead, along with tools of their own tool kits or perhaps heirlooms received from relatives. Although other Dalton cemeteries and large base camps probably exist, the majority of recorded Dalton sites appear to be temporary camps set up for gathering and/or processing resources. The stone sources used to make Dalton tools include Crowley’s Ridge chert and many stones from the Ozarks and along the Ozark escarpment. The distribution of stone tools made of different chert types provides clues to the movements of Dalton people.” ref

“The Sloan site consisted of a series of tree-covered sand dunes that had been partially cleared and cultivated at the time it was first documented in 1968. Erosion led to the discovery of Dalton artifacts by relic collectors. In 1974, the site was excavated in order to prevent further loss of artifacts and information. Conditions at the site did not preserve human bone. The majority of tiny bone fragments were identified as unquestionably human; none were identified as non-human. The variation in thickness of human skull fragments indicates that both juveniles and adults were buried in the Sloan cemetery. A total of 439 artifacts in small clusters were found during the month-long excavation. The majority of grave goods were Dalton points and adzes. Tools for scraping, engraving or incising, hammering, pecking, polishing and cutting, as well as five small lumps of red ochre and an iron oxide nodule were also recovered. Analysis of the spatial arrangement of human bone fragments and artifact clusters suggests that there were between twenty-eight and thirty graves at the site.” ref

“Although the remains of the Dalton period are very limited, we can draw some general conclusions about the culture. Dalton people were the descendants of the Paleoindians based on similarities in technology, settlement, and subsistence strategies, though some of the animals hunted by the Paleoindians—such as the late ice age mammoths and mastodons—were extinct by the time the Dalton culture came into existence. The invention of the chipped stone adze, apparently by a Dalton person, was the first heavy-duty woodworking tool for felling trees and working wood in North America. The Dalton adze laid the foundation for later groups to alter their environment significantly. Based on the distances between stone sources and campsites where stone tools are deposited, Dalton people generally traveled shorter distances than their Paleoindian ancestors and greater distances than their descendents. Although much of their time was spent in their daily tasks of procuring materials for subsistence needs, they clearly devoted time for matters other than food, clothing, and shelter. The planned interment of bodies and grave goods at the Sloan site suggests that Dalton people believed in an afterlife and/or possibly a higher power. If such a belief system was in place by 8500 BC, then it likely that it dates to an even earlier age.” ref

“The Dalton Period of indigenous people lasted from 10,500 to 9,900 years ago, from about 8500 to 7900 BCE. During this time, a culture of ancient Native American hunter-gatherers made a distinctive set of stone tools that are today found at sites across the middle United States. The Dalton Period occurred during the transition from the last ice age to the beginning of the Holocene age. The Dalton people probably knew a wide range of plant species that were edible or could be used as medicines. Some of the important native plants include persimmon, greenbrier, pokeweed, cattail, amaranth, dock, lamb’s quarters, wild onion, and berries, fruits, and nuts. The people also hunted elk, bear, white-tailed deer, raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and other small mammals. Although direct evidence is lacking, birds, waterfowl, amphibians, reptiles, and fish would likely have been excellent sources of protein and relatively easy to capture, especially in the Mississippi River Valley Delta region.” ref

“The Dalton people continued using most of the stone tools that their Paleoindian ancestors used: spear points, which also served as cutting tools, and flake tools (end scrapers, side scrapers, and gravers), usually made from flint and shaped by flaking pieces off a larger core. Several tools that first appeared during the Dalton period include the chipped stone drill/awl and adze, the shaft abrader, and edge-abraded cobbles. The most distinctive item in the Dalton stone toolkit, the Dalton point, was used to penetrate game like white-tailed deer and to cut and saw meat, hide, wood, and other materials. Dalton points were generally lanceolate (leaf-shaped). The blade portion of the point was sometimes serrated, similar to a modern bread knife. The bottom or haft portion of the Dalton point was made to be concave at the base and tapered so that it would fit into a handle or a spear shaft. As Dalton points were re-sharpened, they began to exhibit an obvious bevel on opposing faces of the blade. This ingenious re-sharpening technique extended the life of the Dalton spear/knife. Archaeologists have documented the specific steps taken in manufacturing and maintaining Dalton spear points and recycling Dalton points into other tools, such as burins, end scrapers, and perforators/drills.” ref

“Although the remains of the Dalton period are minimal, it is possible to draw some general conclusions about the culture. Dalton people were the descendants of the Paleoindians based on similarities in technology, settlement, and subsistence strategies. However, some of the animals hunted by the Paleoindians – such as the late ice age mammoths and mastodons – were extinct by the time the Dalton culture came into existence. The invention of the chipped stone adze, apparently by a Dalton person, was the first heavy-duty woodworking tool for felling trees and working wood in North America. The Dalton laid the foundation for later groups to alter their environment significantly. Based on the distances between stone sources and campsites where stone tools are deposited, Dalton people generally traveled shorter distances than their Paleoindian ancestors and greater distances than their descendants. Although much of their time was spent in their daily tasks of procuring materials for subsistence needs, they devoted time to matters other than food, clothing, and shelter. The planned interment of bodies and goods at the Sloan site suggests that Dalton people believed in an afterlife and possibly a higher power. If such a belief system was in place by 8500 BCE, it likely dates to an even earlier age.” ref

ref

“Artifacts from the Dalton Period (circa 8500 to 7900 BCE), during which there existed a culture of ancient Native American hunter-gatherers.” ref

Axes, Adzes, and Clubs (Click to see pictures)

“Axes were made by flaking and/or hammer-dressing the blank to a roughly oval shape, then grinding a sharp edge on one end. The edge was ground to both faces, centring it. Edge-ground axes were mounted onto handles, like a modern hatchet. The first edge-ground axes in the world appear in the archaeological record of Australia over 40,000 years ago. Eventually edge-ground stone axes were independently invented in all parts of the world. Stone axes were made in a diversity of shapes and sizes, reflecting their different historical roots, combined with the types of stone they were made from, and the methods used to affix them to handles.  Metamorphic and volcanic stones were often used for axes because of the durability of these materials, but many were made from flint or chert where those materials were abundant.” ref

“Stone axes were hafted with the cutting edge parallel to the handle, but a variant of stone axes, called adzes, were hafted with the cutting edge at a right angle to the handle, much like a modern hoe.  The cutting edge of an adze is offset towards one face, unlike the centred edge seen on stone axes.  Stone axes were sometimes made with grooves or waists for hafting, and the cutting edges on some types of axes were made entirely by flaking. Stone axes were highly prized and traded widely by many prehistoric societies.  Prestige axes were often larger than day-to-day axes, or were made from precious stone, or show exceptionally skilled craftsmanship.  Some were decorated or shaped with cultural iconography.  Prestige axes were sometimes entirely ceremonial and not used for utilitarian tasks.” ref

“Axe grinding grooves are a type of archaeological site created by edge-ground axe manufacture.  These are bedrock outcrops or boulders of abrasive stone, such as sandstone, marked by many grooves resulting from grinding the edges on axes.  Axe grinding grooves often occur near water, which was used to speed up the grinding process.  Sometimes hundreds or even thousands of grooves are found at these sites, which were sometimes used repeatedly for thousands of years. Clubs and maces are stones that were made in a similar way to axes, out of similar types of stone, but the working part was rounded rather than sharpened.  They were presumably used for pounding things, although maces may have been prestige objects.” ref

ref

Experiments with replicas of Early Upper Paleolithic edge-ground stone axes and adzes provide criteria for identifying tool functions

Highlights

• We conducted stone axes/adzes experiments to identify tree-felling tools.
• A total of 75 edge-ground stone axe and/or adze replicas were used in the experiments.
• Three types of macroscopic fractures diagnostic for percussive uses were established.
• Morphological features of microwear from wood-working on ground tools were confirmed.
• Both the macro- and microscopic traces allow us to detect the tree-felling tools.

“Systematic tree-felling using a polished stone axe and/or adze developed with sedentary lifeways in Holocene environments. However, securely dated Pleistocene edge-ground stone axes/adzes have now been identified from Marine Isotope Stage 3 sites in two distant regions: Australia and Japan. These early ground tools are indicative of full-blown tree-felling, but whether they indeed functioned as woodworking tools remains unclear.” ref

“Researchers present the results of an experimental study with replicas of Early Upper Paleolithic edge-ground stone axes/adzes from the Japanese archipelago that included a total of 75 replicas used in 15 different use and nonuse experiments. Results indicate that identifications of wood percussive tools must be based on a comprehensive analysis of both macro- and microscopic traces. Overall, the criteria presented in this study allow us to distinguish between edge-ground stone axes/adzes used as tree-felling tools and those used for other tasks.” ref

“Tree-felling was an important activity for prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Wood was a widely available and useful raw material for tools, housing, other facilities, and fuel. Pleistocene wooden artifacts mainly consist of stick-shaped objects (e.g., spear, throwing stick, and digging stick) from African and European sites dated to about 300–15 ka. Holocene-aged Mesolithic and Neolithic sites in various regions of the world have yielded elaborate wooden implements and features such as dwellings, wells, tracks, canoes, ladles, combs, and bows, suggesting that prehistoric society and material cultures were dramatically changed by the development of woodworking technology.” ref  

“Generally, the Neolithic sedentary lifeways firmly established the tree-felling technology in Holocene environments, with the importance of wood increasing with the invention of the polished stone axe, which has a durable cutting. However, edge-ground stone axes and/or adzes (EGAXs/AZs) have now been identified from Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 sites in Australia and Japan, and a much earlier appearance in Australia. Evidence of early ground stone tools indicates that developed technologies in tree-felling and woodworking may have emerged earlier than previously believed.” ref

“To date, MIS 3 or possibly much older edge-ground stone tools have been recovered only from two regions, Australia and Japan, and no relevant artifacts have yet been found from the adjacent continental Asia. Isolated events suggest that these unique tools were invented soon after the arrival of Homo sapiens in the two regions. Homo sapiens underwent an explosive expansion all over the globe, far beyond those of archaic hominins, in the last 50,000 years. The dispersal of Homo sapiens into new environments is marked by technological ingenuity and behavioral flexibility, which included the production of Pleistocene edge-ground stone tools in Australia and Japan.” ref

“Among these settings, the number of Japanese Paleolithic sites abruptly increased after 38,000 cal yr BP, with modern human skeletal remains almost simultaneously appearing in the southern islands (Ryukyu), signaling a large-scale dispersal and colonization of modern humans. Edge-ground stone tools also emerged from the beginning of the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP, ca. 38,000–30,000 cal yr BP) in Japan, which saw a significant development of deciduous broadleaf forests including beech, oak, and elm during MIS 3. Notably, from more than 500 EUP sites identified in this archipelago, more than 800 EGAXs/AZs were recovered, suggesting that polished stone tools played a pivotal role in the adaptation to the temperate forest of MIS 3 and further allow for a quantitative evaluation of their functions.” ref  

“However, as is known from multifunctional uses in ethnographical records, the existence of EGAXs/AZs cannot be regarded as direct evidence of tree-felling. Therefore, a rigorous use-wear analysis of the Japanese EUP EGAXs/AZs and reliable interpretation criteria are required to demonstrate percussive uses on wood by EUP hunter-gatherers in this archipelago. Hence, in this paper, we performed experimental traceological studies with EGAX/AZ replicas and discussed the prospect of identifying tree-felling or wood-percussive tools based on macro- and microscopic use-wear.” ref

“Prehistoric stone tools must undergo systematic functional analysis that includes replicative traceological experiments. Compared with experimental studies of use-wear on several types of chipped stone artifacts, experiments of stone axes/adzes have not been comprehensively designed. Yet some important studies have shown a morphological variety of microscopic use-wear on polished stone axes/adzes, for example, used polished axe/adze replicas for several tasks, which include not only tree-felling but also bark removal, butchering, hide-processing, and hoeing, and revealed that each of these various contact materials forms a distinctive type of micropolish. The results indicated that even on the ground working edge, the microtopographical distribution and morphological features of micropolish are useful clues for identifying specific worked materials. ” ref

“Meanwhile, published results of experiments for percussive fractures have remained scant. Percussive uses such as tree-felling, wood-axing, and wood-adzing, which are considered the principal functions of stone axes/adzes, often generate macroscopic fractures on the working edge and medial portion of the body because of percussive impact. Therefore, macroscopic breakage patterns can also provide important clues regarding such functions. However, these macroscopic fractures do not automatically indicate percussive use because they can be caused by other factors such as preform production, edge rejuvenation, transportation, and trampling. Similar to comprehensive experiments involving stone weaponry, experiments on breakage patterns linked to nonuse factors must also be conducted to differentiate percussive fractures on stone axes/adzes. In this study, we provided new criteria based on the macro- and microscopic traces on 75 replicas used in 15 different use and nonuse experiments, which will allow us to identify archaeological EGAXs/AZs used as wood-percussive tools.” ref

“Our findings showed that while diagnostic macroscopic fractures exclusively occurred in percussive workings, they do not explain whether the tools were used on wood or other materials such as antler or bone or for disarticulation. Furthermore, while micropolish analysis can identify tools used on wood, micropolish does not always allow for a precise identification of percussive use. Therefore, this study provided multiple criteria composed of both macroscopic and microscopic traces, which are reliable clues for detecting wood-percussive tools from archaeological assemblages.” ref

“The association between macroscopic fractures, which include feather, hinge, or step terminating bending fractures larger than 5 mm and/or spin-off fractures, and microscopic wood polish exhibiting a bright, smooth, and domed appearance is a good indicator of tree-felling or wood-percussive use. Also, the co-occurrence of wood polish and small flaking scars ranging from 5 mm to 2 mm is indicative of a wood-percussive tool if cone fractures, fractures with V-shaped initiations, and random scratches are not associated or if small flaking scars formed before the polish.” ref  

“Hence, if these reliable macroscopic and microscopic traces are observed in a considerable number of EGAXs/AZs in Japanese EUP assemblages, we can conclude that they were frequently used for tree-felling or wood-percussing. Applying these results to the analysis of MIS 3 or older EGAXs/AZs would lead to a better understanding of the early emergence of Neolithic-like stone tools in island environments as well as modern humans’ ingenuity and flexibility as they dispersed into different environments.” ref  

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Woodworking Tool Tradition

“South Texas Plains, and they are found almost everywhere in the region. Not only are they geographically widespread, but various forms of these artifacts were used throughout most of the prehistoric era, from before 10,000 years ago onward. We prefer to call them “adzes” and “gouges,” as both are functional terms that echo how we believe these tools were used.” ref

Maritime Archaic Hafted and Unhafted Adzes

“First and foremost, they were woodworking tools, although some of them were used for scraping and shaping bone, hides, and plants from time to time. This tool class is yet another example of the Swiss-army-knife-like versatility of many of the stone tool forms used in the region. In the South Texas Plains, necessity was the mother of adaptive tool use, we might say. But let’s stick with the main function—woodworking—because that is the most common and consistent kind of use wear evidence documented by several careful microscopic studies of these tools. Why, you might wonder, were woodworking tools so common in a region that is not known for its forests of towering trees? We’ll come back to this very good question after describing these tools and adding some technical detail.” ref

“Adzes and gouges are relatively chunky stone tools that have a beveled (steep-angled) working end (bit) as a common element, and most of them are wider at the working (distal) end than the opposite (proximal) end, which is always rounded or blunt pointed. Whether they have rounded or pointed proximal ends, and convex, straight, or concave working edges, they are all characterized by distally beveled working edges that form an angle ranging from 45-85 degrees. Most were bifacially made, but some, especially early forms, were unifacial and made on large flakes in such a way that they have a flat (ventral) face and a humped and flaked (dorsal) face. And then there is the rather peculiar Guadalupe tool, which is sometimes said to be “trifacial,” meaning that it almost has three flaked surfaces forming a subtriangular cross-section. But they all have steeply beveled working ends, and almost all of them are chunky (relatively thick) compared to projectile points and knives. Many appear to have been hafted, that i,s they were affixed to wooden handles, but probably in several different ways, and others were probably hand-held tools. These differences have interesting functional implications that are discussed below.” ref

“And there are lots of them. As a group, they are probably the most common tool class found in the South Texas Plains, except for projectile points and simple, unmodified flake tools. Adze and gouge forms include the following named types: Clear Fork, Guadalupe, Nueces, Dimmit, and Olmos. Of these, the last three are unique to the region, and the distribution of the Guadalupe tool extends only just beyond the region. In contrast, Clear Fork tools occur far to the north across the Edwards Plateau and into the Southern Plains. The Clear Fork category is also the most problematic because the style name has been applied to a considerable range of tools of varying size, form, and age.” ref

“Within the region, the Clear Fork name is applied to the earliest and largest gouges/adzes. Large bifacial Clear Fork tools have been found at some Paleoindian sites. These artifacts first appear by end of the Late Paleoindia era about 10,000 years ago, and probably considerably earlier. Large unifacial Clear Fork tools are common in Early Archaic sites. But smaller unifacial and bifacial adzes and gouges that have been called Clear Fork tools occur in later Archaic contexts. Dale Hudler’s thorough use-wear study of Clear Fork tools from southern and central Texas concluded that although many were woodworking tools, some were also used on bone or antler, hide, and soft vegetal material. Some individual tools were found to have two different kinds of use polish “bolstering the image of a formal tool that was sometimes used for a variety of tasks.” ref

“Guadalupe tools date only to the Early Archaic, and they have a most peculiar look, being very thick at the working end and having a flat, almost circular bit formed most often by a very steep, flat-faced bevel. They occur mainly in the northern part of the South Texas Plains from along the Balcones Escarpment, west to the Rio Grande, and east to just past the Guadalupe River; the area of highest density is the greater Guadalupe drainage basin (including its largest tributary, the San Antonio River). This form has been well studied by Kenneth Brown and others and is clearly a woodworking tool used as an adze (see below). Interestingly, several caches of Guadalupe adzes have been documented that appear to be groups of functional tools stored for future use that were never reclaimed.” ref

“Nueces and Dimmit tools were originally defined as scrapers, but use-wear on many specimens examined under magnification also suggests that they were employed as woodworking adzes and gouges. The macroscopic and microscopic use-wear on Olmos tools, the smallest and latest of the lot, also appears consistent with their use as woodworking tools. Materials of various hardnesses (i.e., soft and hard woods, hides) appear to have been worked with all three of the tool forms. The Nueces and Dimmit tools have unifacial and bifacial variants, while the Olmos tools are strictly bifacial. Overall, then, although Nueces, Dimmit, and Olmos tools represent multi-purpose tools used on various kinds of raw materials, woodworking is the dominant pattern.” ref

“Adze” versus “gouge,” is there a real distinction? As we see it, an adze has its working end (the head of the tool) installed perpendicular or nearly so to the handle of the tool. The alignment of the working edge also cross-cuts the alignment of the handle (i.e., it is perpendicular to the handle) rather than paralleling it as in a hatchet or axe. It is used in a downward chopping motion such that the bit glances against the material being worked. Adzes require two tool head design features: (1) a longitudinal curve so that the back (dorsal face) of the adze is curved, and (2) a bevel working edge that deflects the shavings away from the material being worked. All adzes, modern and ancient, seem to have these two characteristics.” ref

“Modern woodworking adzes made of metal vary in size and shape, depending on the final product being desired. Some have a curved working edge (a “stich” or “sweep”) that reflects the degree of curvature of the shaving being removed. A stich 3 adze has a barely curved working edge while a stich 9 has a working edge that curves an entire 180 degrees, similar to Guadalupe adzes, for instance. This type of curvature is different from the convex or straight working edge shape that many stone adzes have. Concave working edges are not functional in an adze and may explain why many of the discarded Dimmit/Nueces tools have concave working edges (i.e., they are rejected tool-making failures). Thus, we would consider all of the triangular adze/gouge tools in the region with curving longitudinal cross-sections, and beveled edges that are on the inside of the curve as adzes. Dimmit and Nueces tools are good examples as may be some “Clear Fork” tools (more on these in a bit).” ref

“In contrast, we perceive gouges as the prehistoric equivalent to modern-day chisels, albeit most were probably not used in conjunction with a hammer. If hafted, the working blade would have been hafted in-line with the handle, and the motion of use parallels the longitudinal alignment of the handle. A longitudinally curved working element (i.e., the bit of the stone tool) is not a functional necessity; instead, it is preferred that the working edge be flat or reasonably so to increase tool efficiency. The steep bevel on the tool edge may still be present, but it is not necessary. Many Clear Fork tools may have been used as gouges, especially the unifacial examples, as well as unifacial Dimmitt “scrapers.” Many “gouges” were probably used as hand-held tools.” ref

“With the exception of the Guadalupe tool, the various other named (and unnamed variants) adzes and gouges are in need of a great deal more study before we can make further progress in sorting out variation, age, and exact function. Everyone who studies these strange tools acknowledges this need. Microscope examination of archeological specimens needs to be coupled with extensive experimental replication. The work that is needed to really understand the adzes and gouges of the region will be time-consuming and require considerable expertise. Many beginning students of archeology have carried out initial studies and written papers on these tools, but only the most serious and knowledgeable studies by experienced researchers have been able to add much that is new and well-documented.” ref

“Let’s return to the $64,000 question: why were woodworking tools so common in a region that is not known for its forests of towering trees? Given the range in form, size, age, and geographical occurrence, there may not be a single plausible answer beyond the obvious – the native peoples of the region made many tools out of wood, and they shaped pieces of wood for building their simple dwellings. Along the Guadalupe River, they may have also made dugout canoes, although no direct evidence of such watercraft has been found.” ref

“Today, the South Texas Plains may be dominated by brush, and the first Europeans encountered widespread grassy savannahs in some areas, but trees were always there, and they were quite plentiful and big in certain places. Prior to the arrival of metal-axe- and bulldozer-welding peoples, the native valleys of all the region’s major rivers and their main tributaries all held considerable woodlands with plenty of large trees of various species. So there was no shortage of wood in all but the thickest grasslands and the upland areas with very shallow soils (which did have plenty of woody shrubs).” ref

“Still, the prevalence of woodworking tools in the South Texas Plains is a fascinating tradition. And, to judge from the great many adzes and gouges at sites spanning at least 10,000 years, a tradition that seems to have been more pronounced here than in any other region of Texas. Perhaps tomorrow’s inquiring minds will learn more about why, when, and how woodworking took hold.” ref