Copper vs Stone Axes in the Archaic Great Lakes and Beyond
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- Note: I keep calling the axes type IV-C when they're actually type VI-C
Lanna Crucefix 2001: "Copper Use in the Old Copper Complex: A Comparative Analysis of Wittry VI-C Copper Axes and Three-Quarter Grooved Stone Axes:
Abstract:
A design theory approach was used to determine whether the copper axes of the Old Copper Complex (a Middle Archaic cultural complex located in the Upper Great Lakes region) were used primarily under practical (utilitarian) or prestigious (social) circumstances. To ascertain whether copper axes were used as functionally efficient tools or social enablers, Wittry VI-C copper and three-quarter grooved stone axes (the control artifact type) were experimentally replicated. The effort involved in manufacturing the axes, and their effectiveness at completing a chopping task were then compared. To supplement the experimental study, archaeological context and spatial distribution, raw material procurement strategies, and copper use and beliefs in later cultures o f the Great Lakes region were also investigated. This study found that the spatial distribution o f Wittry VI-C copper axes and three-quarter grooved stone axes was not significantly different. However, copper axes had a higher incidence o f being located in prestigious contexts such as burials and caches. An examination o f procurement costs found that copper was more expensive to obtain than stone material, in terms of skill, labour, and time. Considering the experimental replication of the two axe types, when the collection of firewood is factored in, the copper axes took longer to make, as well as requiring more skill, advanced technical knowledge, effort, dedicated work time, and more ancillary tools. When compared to the stone axes, copper axes-particularly the annealed axes- were not significantly more efficient in a wood-chopping task. Copper axes also required more maintenance to remain effective. Using the data generated in this study, Wittry VI-C annealed copper axes- which have been found archaeologically- can be said fulfill the requirements of a purely prestige object, as they are costly to procure and manufacture, but are completely ineffective for most practical tasks. Although the cold-worked copper axes did meet a minimum level o f functional efficiency, their overall costs show them to be utilitarian prestige objects. The primary role of these axes was played in the social sphere, displaying wealth, status, and power.
Further Reading:
Peter G. Murphy and Alice J. Murphy 2012: Chipped Stone Axes of the Archaic Southeast: An Important Step in the Advancement of Stone Tool Technology. Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol. 59, No. 2
Warren Lee Wittry 1950: A Preliminary Study of the Old Copper Complex Bachelor's Thesis, University of Wisconsin.
Tiziana Andrea Gallo 2022: Vibrant Stone: Ground Stone Celt Biographies Among the Ancestral and Historic Wendat in Southern Ontario from
the 14th to mid-17th Centuries. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Ontario
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Many moons ago, I saw a documentary about some anthropologists in someplace like New Guinea. A tribes-dude was chopping at a standing tree with a stone axe. Anthro-dude offered his spiffy steel hatchet. Tribes-dude used it for a bit, then handed it back, preferring his stone axe. Surprising at first, but basically, each tool needed a different technique to be effective. With the stone axe, you hit straight on and bludgeon your way through the wood. With the steel hatchet, you strike at an angle and cut out chips. Neither tool works well with the other's chopping style.
Different strokes for different blokes, you might say.
Imagine the North American Forest is your Ace Hardware store! The amount of Knowledge and skill required to survive and support your family and tribe is off the friggin scale obviously.
Bill and Ted Had an excellent adventure With So-Crates!
Not sure how relevant this is but I'm dating a Native Alaskan gal who can outsharpen any grown man I've ever seen. She only uses river rocks. Not sure if she taught herself online or if this is at least some native tech handed down. She even has it down to various grits of rock she finds. I've honestly never seen anything like it. I can just imagine what people were doing here ten thousand years ago.
Hope you two marry and make children and love each other nicely and build a good life together.
The reason it looks like a maul is because it is a maul, designed and fabricated to seperate the bark from a tree. American Indians had no reason or need to chop down trees!
The Birch is one of few trees that you can seperate the bark from and it won't kill the tree, it will just grow back next season.
When Settlers arrived here to America there were vast forests, no stumps, and tribes That lived in tune with nature ,the land and the seasons and solid evidence that previous Celtic White people were here previously.
@@MoonBerryShrimp as I’ve heard The evidence for hunting megafauna to extinction is tenuous at best. More likely they contributed to it, rather than being the sole cause of.
This is GREAT detail of practical life back then.
Very cool topic!
I assume theres a boss battle at the end where copper and stone axes fight each other.
A common mistake people make when discussing this topic is that axes and I'll use the term hatchets are NOT the same tool. One is for trees and lumber, one is for day to day use like small firewood, butchering, dispatching animals, self defense. Just like today. Testing them in each others wheel house will give you incorrect results.
Outstanding real world experimentation.
Nice content brother. Thanks
Interesting for sure. Thanks for bringing it.
Very interesting comparison.
Interesting video. Thanks
it was both interesting and informative. thank-you!
Primitive Technology made a ground stone axe and would bash away until there was enough fibers removed and he could snap the trunk or branch. Looked like he got real good at it
Definitely interesting and informative! Thank you! Are there other types of woodworking tools made of stone or of copper in the archeological record of the Eastern Woodlands? An adze for example. I wonder if copper would be more effective in certain woodworking applications.
Hey i also wonder about the same thing, i recebtly tried to cold hammer an copper adze. For bow making pourposes, but i think i need to anniel it cuz i worked the edge too much and it went brittle and bended... or i think need to make the brittle parts softer and the bendy parts more hard xd But before i overworked it, and ruined the blade, it worked fine on a 15-20 cm thick willow trunk(rather aoft and bendy wood) and made a very decent flat surface. Id love to make a stone or bone one too, but i think this requires more knowledge about the local rock that are available for me. And antler would also be rather expensive.
@@vicitoedemane1244 find some local flint knappers. Its a lot more fun to have folks already doing what you like and join in rather than re-invent the wheel!
See what they use to make arrow shafts....snag some sharp chert!!.
Always welcome
Interesting note: the Sauk were known to girdle trees to kill them, farm under them, and gather dead limbs and branches as they fell over the years.
Good stuff. I am curious if anyone has ever found a stone axe head still hafted? I have done some of my own testing and found that larger pieces of serated chert, even low quality, cut trees down with much less effort and much quicker than celt type "axes". I wonder if those are even axes at all rather than just very nice and useful knapping tools. I made a "celt" and was able to make large arrowhead looking knives using nothing else. I used the thin part to do the pressure flaking rather than use antler. One ",celt" did the whole thing.
Also when I find them , they are very close to other knapping tools.
I am the newbies of news but I can't find any evidence suggesting they are for sure "axes" or "celts".
I respect you for for creating and experimenting with these tools. the problem is that these were obviously hafted tools. why would you haft a knapping tool?
Very interesting. Thank you
Dude you could be my doppelganger! 🤣
Any archeological study of the large stones under one Michigan? That has to be studied soon!
First question I have is how was wood as well as what wood was used in these cultures? Maybe we’re looking at it the wrong way? Also using fire to pre burn wood may explain shortcomings with stone axes?
Anything over about 6" in diameter would be burned and chopped. The smaller trees were cut for house posts and wood tools.
What's with the deer skull on back of couch???? I got to know why, but I really like your videos, I've been hunting rocks since I was 10, got some artifacts I'd like for you to take a look at. Let me know if you are interested
I came expecting guitar reviews 😂😂❤❤
Major Pentatonic Blues scale obviously!
Yes the status symbol like four years with metal weapons versus Stone and Bone weapons
What?
@@NathanaelFosaaen Don't worry, laminated Boiled antler technology wasn't covered in that class.
Did they cast copper axes or just modify the natural form as found?
I talk about the method in the second half.
I heard some celt axes can be used as hand axes as well . Is there any evidence of this that you know ! 🤔
Awesome Video 👍
Will you be at the SAC in Williamsburg this year?
Just registered for SEAC like 45 minutes ago.
Very curious about this one. It must have been very hard crafting a bow with a stone axe. Copper axes would have been much easier
This was long before bows were used anywhere in the eastern woodlands.
I appreciate the content, and will admit I did learn one or two things, but have to say ... given that you yourself listed the pros & cons of the tools, I find it strange that you came to what is (IMO) a poor conclusion at the end of your video. I think the more accurate conclusion is, "Different tools for different jobs."
While it's true that richer men get to play with richer toys, cost is a secondary attribute, and incidental if we truly want to understand the functional uses of different tools. Yes, copper axes cost more up front, and required more maintenance to keep sharp, but they enabled the bearer to make finer cuts, which may have been valued for specific uses.
Like I said, it's possible, but for the most part, the trees being cut with both axes were used for housing posts. We don't really see much in the way of fine woodwork with axes.
@@NathanaelFosaaen So are you just saying you didn't want to say that because it's not in the archeological record?
If that's the case, yeah, that's one of the issues I always have with a lot of the archeological conversations. IMO there shouldn't be shame in speculation provided it's clearly labeled as such. I (again, personally) have always thought it makes everyone all sound a lot dumber than necessary to say, "We don't know why people did this," rather than, "I think XYZ makes a lot of sense, but we can't state that because we don't have any record of that."
You can't make a claim if you have no evidence. And in fact there is evidence to the contrary. We do have more precise tools made from copper than what copper axes can do, like awls and chisels and knives. The more V-shaped cuts that copper axes allow don't correlate to more precise workmanship for finished products in any meaningful way.
Perhaps an easier method would have been to domesticate young wild beavers thru capture, breast feeding, and training by using their natural instincts to chew and harvest small trees?
I'm not here to kink shame anybody, but I'm a little kink concerned.
Have you ever seen the teeth in a beavers gob?
Brave woman that's going to Breastfeed one.
@@NathanaelFosaaen "Assinine" is to come up with a solid conclusion based on total Bullshit. ; for example: I got home from work one day (Many Years ago)and my Wife was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor of our rented house Crying! When I asked her what was wrong, she shoved a pack of Capri Ultra-Light Cigarettes in my Face!.."what's This!"She said! I Immediatetly noticed the Opened pack of thin Girly Cigarettes were years stale, and she agreed! When asked where she found them I discovered a polaroid of the previous tenant, But the story was already formulated in her mind and archeology can be the same way. The evidence proved me innocent, but the emotion made me guilty, anyway! True Story, 33 years later same wife, maybe finally thinks of the evidence.LOL Happily Married to this day.
Please disregard any link
Seems the stone axes would used as war weapon and perhaps self defense for animal attack not cutting trees .
The stone axes were still being used to cut wood in the 17th century.
There Were atlatls and bows and spears and slings! Knives and who's gonna kill a fly with a sledgehammer?
Common Sense and mechanical skill will always be a factor when working with someone else's tools. Tools are fabricated to make things easier, not harder! Watching someone chop a standing tree as opposed to Preloading the fibers of the tree by bending the tree first may produce a better result, Wheras slicing or sawing the wood fibers with stone may be more effective? I Imagine Birch was in great need, and birch bark to make glue, canoes, and dwellings and rope so I imagine at least some of these tools were to debark trees and not chop down trees, and to harvest hemp and fiber? IDK I really Dig your channel. I got blond hair and a high hairline and people think I have been going bald since I was in gradeschool. letting my hair down makes people uneasy So I pull it back tight in a ponytail and people seem to feel more comfortable. Very Wierd!
My blonde schoolmate and his brother were bald just after high school.
Just wear a hat. 😂
@@redtobertshateshandles But I'm Obviously not bald! My hair is almost as thick as you are, and that's really saying something! I've Grown and Donated my hair to female cancer victims in 7 year intervals for over 30 years, Pard,and my hairline hasn't budged since I was a kid........Now if you Balled your Schoolmates, That's another story Kojak! Who Loves you Baby!
@@redtobertshateshandles An untouched forest doesn't require chopping down trees to build a long house! plenty of standing dead and storm blown live timber! The sketches I have seen from Eye Witnesses look more like Quonset huts and domes made with Flexible timbers Bark ,sod Grass and clay.There is also ample evidence of stone and wood Structures built by Native American Indians. There is no doubt! It is a good thing to challenge the established rote with common sense and skill, and evidence knowing the extreme amount of skill and knowledge it takes to not only survive, but thrive in harmony in and with nature and the supernatural world , There is also a Treasure Trove of eyewitness Historical Documentation that dates back centuries that seems to get overlooked ,that was recorded by both natives and settlers that may help without prejudice for historians and archeologists for a better understanding of the Americas and the American population at many points.
Ain't no joke there is plenty of historical record of stone tools,I believe up until Mr. Ames started manufacturing Iron Shovels the American Colonials were forced to use wooden shovels! It is all the background information that leads a sane and educated person to certain conclusions.
Nathaniel is studying Native American culture while as a native american i was to make Josh Hartnett commit seppuku for making a terrible movie, jk I'd never that...or would i 😏