Saturday, November 26, 2005

Ceramic Trade

I realize that my friend Chris is the expert on ceramics, and that this post could go on the Friends of the Fremont blog, but I thought that due to my blog's emphasis on production and experimental methods that this topic might have a better fit here.

I just got done grading the paper of one of my students, Eric Ritter, who experimented on adding temper to clay. He added temper to wet clay and then he added temper to dry powdered clay. He found that he had better results with temper to clay ratios when he added temper to powdered clay. He also found that adding water to powdered clay enabled him to determine the exact consistency needed to form his vessel.

Eric suggested that mixtures of clay powder and temper may have been easier to transport and trade than wet clay or a pre-made ceramic vessel. I'm not sure how Eric's idea could be tested or if it would show up in any kind of ethnographic record, but I suppose that it could be possible.

If a group of people lived in an area that lacked raw materials, would they just buy pots from those that had already made them or would they prefer to buy the "just add water" mixes?

I would think that if a group without ceramic resources would also lack the knowledge of how to make ceramics and just buy pre-made pots, but who knows?

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The Best Laid Plans

Tomorrow, I will heading up to Coalville, Utah to visit a friend. He is an assistant scout master and has asked me to brign up my flintknapping stuff to do a demo for his troop. Originally, I told him that I would be happy to blast out 15-16 little arrowheads for the scouts.

Three papers later and a stats assignment hanging over my head, I've decided that there is no way I am going to make anyone an arrowhead. I'll just have to settle for teaching them how to do cordage.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

The aftermath of class projects

I haven't had time to forumulate my post on toolstone preservation and flintknapping skill yet. Probably in a week.

So, to keep my loyal readers entertained, I thought I'd talk about the class projects my students turned in yesterday.

Here's a list of the projects:

Griding acorns into flour, leaching tannin from the flour, and processing it into small edible cakes (for us to eat)(interesting flavor).
Making a corrugated pot.
Carving Mayan glyphs into an unfired pot.
Making an Egyptian canopic jar (with the head of anubis on the lid).
Exerimenting with different designs on southwestern pottery.
Hafting a projectile point to an arrowshaft.
Experimenting with different types of temper for ceramics (there were three of these types of projects).
Making an atlatl shaft, complete with fletching.
Comparing cores made by a novice flintknapper and one with more experience.

There were some of my students who were not there, so I'm not sure what their projects will be like. I was most impressed with the acorn grinding and flour leaching, as well the project that carved glyphs into a pot.Both were incredibly labor intensive and very informative. The comparison of lithic cores was also very interesting.

One of the temper comparison studies proved informative. One of the students determined that the addition of temper is facilitated when the clay is also dry and powdery. He learned this by letting a lump of clay dry out, grinding it into powder, and then adding temper and water. He said it worked much better. What do all of you ceramicists think about that? I think it makes sense, especially if the potter is digging dry clay or dirt out of the ground.

I know that some of the students really struggled to create a finished product(some weren't very pretty), but for the most part, it seems like they did some great research.

Friday, November 04, 2005

I have pulled flakes off of John Clark's Biface and did not break it...

I found out that several of my students have been ill, one of them got in a car accident, and one is dealing with emotional problems...hardly reasons to miss class. Just joking.

I probably just have boring lectures.

Anyway, on Thursday Dr. Clark showed me a different technique of hard hammer reduction. Clark has developed a method of using the flat or face of the hammerstone rather than the edges.

Clark hits the biface with the flat of the hammerstone in a downward motion and pulls of very thin, flat flakes. he had me try it out, and while it is a slightly uncomfortable method for me (mainly because it is new), I had some success. The flakes removed from this method are not as curved as those removed with an antler billet. This allows the knapper to avoid creating central ridges which interfere with the thickness of the biface.

Clark had been working on a biface about 5 inches long and 1/4 to 1/8 inches thick. Shortly after teaching me this new technique, he left and I pulled some flakes off of his biface using this new technique. It was a high risk activity(working on his biface), but he had so many perfectly prepared platforms that I couldn't say no. Granted, I could have broken it, but I felt confident enough in my abilities that I didn't sweat it too much.

It's certainly a technique worth developing.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Students are MIA

The attendance in my tech. class has really dropped off lately. I don't quite understand it either. We are doing flintknapping and for some reason, no one has been showing up. The class starts at 3:00, and at 3:00 we only had 6 of the 14 enrolled students show up.

I realize that my class is an easier one and that it may be a low priority for some of the students, but in reality they are wasting tuition. My friend Molly put it this way: they aren't showing up for lessons that they have already payed for (lessons taught by John Clark, Mr. Prismatic Blade).

Anyway, just an observation...

I'm developing a post about raw material conservation and flintknapping skill, based on an article I found in Lithic Technology. I'll post it soon.