Find of the Day August 23

The site was officially closed a few days ago, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to be discovered! The field crew has left us some nice surprises in some of the mixed bags, and today Lindsey brought in a find that amazed even Rick. He promptly went to the store to buy us all some pop to celebrate!

Stay tuned for some of our favourites!

Rick: Lindsey has been water screening bulk samples, taken in order to recover small fish bones and similar small faunal finds from house floors. This artifact came from one of those samples.  It is a hafted scalpel with a very sharp blade ground from green slate. One of these tools was collected by Edward Nelson for the Smithsonian in the 1870s. Nelson recorded that scalpels like this were used for installing labrets into the faces of their Yupik wearers. We have found a few scalpel blades before, but never a hafted one. The Nunalleq material continues to amaze!