By: MIGHTYmacro
Image: MIGHTYmacro ⧉
Subject: McMaster Sustainable Archaeology ⧉
License: Copyright, All Rights Reserved

Uploaded: 31 Jul 2017
Last Updated: 31 Jul 2017

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165.1 in X 137.2 in at 300dpi
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Made using 13,338 photos
9 rows | 19 columns | 78 stacks

This is a chert biface (flaked on both sides) from the Templar (or Templer) site in Ancaster Township, Ontario. The location of the site is not precisely known today and has not yet been registered in the Ontario Archaeological Sites Database. Frank S. Wood collected from Templar in the early 20th Century, associating his finds with a concession line number (where several 100-acre land parcels or lots belong to that particular concession). Its location has been narrowed down substantially through additional research in more recent decades. Based on the collected artefacts, the site is considered to date to the Historic Neutral period of the early 17th Century. This biface is recorded in the Wood Catalogue as WC [Wood Collection] 2368. Wood regarded this item to be a “Flint Hoe”. Chipped stone hoes are known in North America, in the Mississippian for example, but do not appear to have been commonplace in Ontario. More consistent step fracture damage to one distal edge may be expected if this item had seen significant use as a hoe, particularly in stony soils. On the other hand, staining, patina, rounded edges (similar to abrasion or grinding) and even polish along flake scar dorsal ridges on the faces of the item are noticeable. Some sandy soils are known in Ancaster Township as well. The biface appears, perhaps coincidentally, to be of Ancaster chert (in the Goat Island Member of the Lockport Formation). If so, the item is anomalously large and of relatively ‘high quality’ for that raw material type. It may otherwise be something somewhat more ‘exotic’. It is also rather large in comparison to other lithics (projectile points, scrapers etc.) of the later Late Woodland or early Contact period and could, instead, relate to an earlier period. Other instances are known, for example, of Neutral Iroquois having found and then later burying ‘heirlooms’ of much older projectile point styles. If you have additional thoughts on this item’s function(s) or its material/outcrop/source, please get in touch with [email protected].