Gorgets or Crescentic Pendants/Necklaces

An interesting artifact from Ya asqalu’i is the large shell neck ornament known to archaeologists as a “Gorget”.  The English language name itself is interesting.  It comes from a European tradition similar ornament, the last piece of traditional armour to still be worn by (some) armies today.

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Stone Chipped Bifaces

The picture above has ALL the bifacially flaked stone artifacts from GbTo-13 and GbTo-54; remarkably few for an assemblage with 4,500 artifacts in total.  Of these, the top left one would normally be considered a unifacial  scraper but it has a finely bifacially flaked end.

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Ancient Names Resurface for Archaeological Sites in Prince Rupert

The Prince Rupert Harbour Project has been a series of exciting archaeological discoveries from its inception in 2006/2007. Only a couple of these though, matched the thrill (complete with goose bumps!) of  finding that there was not only a Tsimshian name for the site we had been excavating and analyzing for so long, but there was a detailed story that incorporated the name multiple times.

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Harpoons – Some Exciting Insights!

Now that we’ve finished defining the areas of the sites that make sense to compare (3D archaeology) and temporal components, we are ready to do some 4D archaeology, adding in the time elements.  Some really cool patterns are starting to come out of the data.

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Stone Miniature Chisels

Another new artifact type from the Kaien Siding project is what we have called the miniature stone chisel. Three exceptionally small, finely finished green stone and possibly basalt chisels were recovered from GbTo-54. These are highly polished on all surfaces and taper toward the distal tip.

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3D archaeological data visualization

While videos of  a GIS 3D screen are the way we’ve shown the data  till now, it allows for no user control other than pausing and rewinding. Alyssa has found a way to present the data in an interactive way using ArcGIS CityEngine WebViewer.

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T-Shaped Mauls Part II

This T-Shaped Hand Maul, from site GbTo-13, was found on it’s own. In the earlier comments, Ken Ames asked for more on the second T-shaped maul, and we are sure this is of interest to many others.

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Wedge Based Whalebone Rod Harpoon Points

Here is a short entry to round out our harpoon sequence.  Next week we’ll bring you the 3-D distribution of the different harpoon types with some really amazing graphics and some notes on what we’ve learned from looking for patterns in where we found the different types.

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