In the collection of the Royal B.C. Museum there is a unique distal section of an adzing tool composed of an elk antler sleeve with a nephrite adze blade still in place. There has been a debate as to weather these were fit onto the end of a strait chisel or a bent elbow adze and why some adzes were angled toward one side at the proximal end.
Many broken to complete elk antler hafts have been found in ancient sites in the general area around the Salish Sea, but finding one with the cutting blade still in-situ is extremely rare. This one, with the Borden number DfRs-Y:11, is a very rare example. It was found in a midden at Point Roberts, bulldozed up during a house construction project. Figure 1, shows both side and end view.
In the 1970s, I was having a discussion with the late Don Abbott, then the Head curator of the Archaeology Division at the Royal B.C. Museum. I had tried putting my own flat bottom nephrite adze blades in a modern antler haft that had I hollowed out to have a socket with a flat bottom. When using the adze it tended to slit the antler haft sideway. I surmised that the small adze blades, with proximal ends that are angled to one side, served the purpose of sending the force of a blow to one side rather than directing the force two ways, causing the half to split. The latter would entail having an angle to the hollowed-out bottom of the socket into which the adze blade was fit.
Don and i discussed how getting X-rays of this in-situ adze might help answer this question. Don took the initiative to contact the local hospital and we had it x-rayed.
The X-rays clearly showed the bottom of the carved-out base of the antler socket to be made at an angle to fit a small stone adze blade that was made at an angle.
We know from ethnographic studies that there were different types and sizes of adzes. In early historic times, the long-handed elbow adze was common on the northern coast and the D-adze on the southern coast. The D-adze had an enclosed handle grip, but on the southern coast there was also what I would call a short-handled elbow adze that was more like a D-adze than the long-handled elbow adze.
Figure 3, shows the adzes found in the historic ethnographic record on the southwestern coast of British Columbia and north western Washington State.
Determining how the adze blade and antler haft elements of an adze were used can be seen by the extent of use polish on one or both sides at the distal end of the antler haft near the adze blade in examples like the in-situ blade specimen. The polish on the upper portions of an antler haft used on an elbow adze will be more polished as it is brushed across the wood more intensively when chopped against the wood. This evidence will also suggest how the antler haft was aligned with the cutting edge of the blade.
How a stone or bone blade was set into a haft would vary according to how big the blade was and the shape and size of the antler from which the haft was made. An important factor would be how strong a cross section of antler was used. A cross section can have a lower or high mineral density in the middle, which can vary with the age and condition of the animal.
Elk antler would obviously be required for larger blades because of its larger size, rather than the generally smaller deer antler. Although a few major studies have been undertaken of stone adze blades, no major study has been undertaken on internal cuts and outer wear patterns on antler hafts.
All of the ethnographic examples of adzes had iron blades which rapidly replaced stone blades by the 1790s. Iron blades may have resulted in a different way of hafting for some types of adzes. Figure 4, shows a unique way in which an iron blade is attached using wrapped leather strips that are placed through a large flap of leather. This would appear to be the result of preventing the leather strip binding from getting damaged during adzing.
Figure 5, shows a “chisel” with a iron blade from the “Lower Sardis area” on the lower Fraser River. It appears to be a modern model of an adze that was made to demonstrate how an antler socket may have been used with a wooden handle fixed into its proximal end. The top of the wooden handle is secured from splitting with a cedar grommet.
Other styles of adzes may have been used in the past. Bone blades work well as cutting tools. Figure 6, shows one of the author’s elbow adzes with an bone blade. Next to it is the same kind of ancient bone that has similar wear patterns and one of the authors small modern bone chisels.
The Innuit had elbow adze parts that included a blade inserted in an antler socket that was tied to the top on an elbow adze. If this type of adze part was used in ancient times in British Columbia there should be a grooved or inset area on archaeological examples, that demonstrate this use pattern. Figure 7, shows two historic elbow adzes of this type from Point Barrow Alaska.
