Technologies Through Time Over the span of 10,000 years in Southeast Alaska, tools and the methods of production have undergone changes. Archeologists, in their study of past people and their cultures, use changes in technologies to identify the passage of one culture to another. Tracking People by Their Tools Microblades and Cores Microblades, tiny blades with parallel sides and a triangular cross section, are pressed from a core of stone, usually obsidian. The distinctive shapes of microblades and cores are used by archeologists as time markers. Their presence in an excavation is an indicator that the site is of the Paleomarine Tradition. Archeologists speculate that the blades were imbedded into a shaft of bone, antler, or wood to form an efficient knife or lance. The distinctive shape also helps in other ways. By comparing microblades and cores in Southeast Alaska with other geographical areas such as Siberia, cultural similarities can be established. Thus, this technology helps to trace possible routes of people's migrations. Independent Inventions Ground and Polished Tools 5,000 years ago the people of Southeast Alaska began grinding bone and stone to form tools. Both materials were rubbed on a sandy stone called an abrader to form the desired shape and sharpness. Bone barbed points, perhaps used as harpoons, are examples of this technology and representative of the early Developmental Northwest Coast Traditions period. Adzes are also representative of this technology. These tools, used to remove large flakes of wood, were sawed with a thin sandy stone from a hard stone such as nephrite, and finely polished. The adze is found in greater abundance during the later period and was eventually made from iron. Because the grinding technology appears along the west coast around 5,000 years ago, it cannot be used to trace migrations of people. It is considered, like so many inventions that happen at the same time, a simultaneous independent invention. Metal Tools World wide, grinding stone preceded the production of metal tools. Here in Southeast Alaska, too, the working of metal without heat, called cold hammering, follows the technology of grinding. Native copper was formed into ornaments, tools, and ritual objects. As iron drifted in on Asian shipwrecks and pieces of wood, it was cold hammered and ground into adzes, knives, and fishing and hunting points. During the earliest part of the Euroamerican Exploration and Trade period, the most popular materials traded were forged iron and copper items. These were reformed by cold hammering into desired traditional tools. The metal smiths aboard trading ships altered iron into twisted bracelets designed after the native copper bracelets. The desirablity of iron was not that it made a sharper tool but that it was malleable and held together under stress. Stone was desired for its sharpness, but the brittle materials would not hold up to prolonged use. As the technology of metals progressed world wide, steel with desirable qualities - malleable, high strength, hard, durable - replaced iron and stone tools. During the early Developmental Industrial Period in Southeast Alaska, tools such as mining drills, double-handled draw saws, axes, and fish cutting blades were in wide use. These artifacts are frequently found in historic archeological sites. Tools and their technologies are the creation of people's efforts to adapt and invent for their needs. The tools which remain in most archeological sites have resisted decay. They represent only a small fraction of people's artifacts, but those that have remained help archeologists interpret people's adaptations and inventions through the passages of time. Home | Forest Facts | Archeology and History | Passages | Timeline