My Stone Maul. Just Grinding and Pecking Away: Progress(?) Report Number Two

In a previous post (https://canehdianstories.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2853&action=edit) I discussed Indigenous ground-stone technology on the Canadian prairies. I decided that because we knew so little on how some objects, such as grooved stone mauls, were made I would try to make one. This method of inquiry is known as ‘Experimental Archaeology’ – a sub-field of archaeology intended to gain insight into prehistoric methods people used by replicating them. These are a few of my thoughts after a little over a week of working on this project. As usual, whenever I take on projects like this there are some real eye-openers. So far, I haven’t been disappointed.

I managed to get in about four hours of work on the quartzite cobble I chose to make my ground-stone maul. Below is a photograph showing my progress pecking and grinding the stone maul. Most of you, after looking closely at this photograph, will probably think: ‘What progress? I don’t see any.’

Well, let me explain. Perhaps another photograph will help. If you look at the cobble closely, at just the right angle, with just the right light, you can see a slight indentation on the cortex (the outer oxidized layer on the rock). You can actually feel it better than see it.

In short, it’s going to take a little longer than the eight hours someone estimated it took to make a granite grooved maul. At this rate with the methods I’m using, you might add one or two zeros to the number eight. I’ll explain my methods, and the tools I’m using to make the maul, to give you a better understanding WHY it’s taking me so long to make any progress.

Pecking? Forget It

First I thought I would try to peck the groove using a small quartzite pebble having the same hardness as the maul. That didn’t work worth a damn. Not only was the impact area of the pecking stone too round, it wore down faster than the cobble I was pecking. And, after forty-five minutes of banging away I was getting nowhere, fast. At first the surface of the cobble looked good with all the stone flour on it. Then I realized that the flour was coming off my pecking stone and not the cobble.

Sawing and Grinding

Next, I found a small coarse-grained sandstone flake. I used a sawing motion across about two centimetres of the flake edge to grind a groove on the cobble. This method worked much better than pecking. After one hour, I thought I saw some of the natural pockmarks on the cobble surface begin to smooth out. But, there was no point measuring my progress. I don’t think they make instruments capable of measuring that small a depth. I was averaging about 150 – 155 strokes per minute using this sawing technique. Or, with one hour’s work, 9,000 – 9,300 strokes. My fingers cramped pretty badly after only one hour’s work.

Continued Search for Just the Right Tool

The coarse-grained sandstone flake worked well enough. But, was there something better? At this stage of the project I’m still guessing and experimenting with different methods. Next I fashioned a few more quartzite flakes. But this time I looked for flakes having burin-like tip (a type of handheld lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which prehistoric humans used for cutting wood or bone), or graver tips (lithic tool with a slightly more pointed tip than a burin), so that I could better gouge the surface of the maul.

If I held the flake at just the right angle (about 20 – 30 degrees) and pushed real hard, I felt I was scouring the cobble better than with the other two methods. However, if the flake point is held to low, not much scouring happened. If I held the flake too high, I couldn’t push it very well, or accurately. Blisters were starting to appear on my fingers, so I wrapped the flake in a paper towel. A piece of leather would do quite nicely as well. Occasionally I found my fore-finger scraping across the cobble as I pushed the flake.

I’m working with rocks, which are good conductors of heat. I’m causing a lot of friction and heat when using the sawing methods. Perhaps dunking the flake tool in water, or adding water to maul surface, would prevent heat build-up.

A Few Closing Observations

It’s pretty obvious already that this project is going to take a long, long time to make. Unless I figure out a better method of incising my cobble. So far, both the sandstone saw and graving/gouging with considerable force on the flake work the best.

Patience is a key here. We live in a society of instant results and gratification. This project would be something you worked on all winter when there was less other work to do. Like knitting sweaters or large rugs, which took many hours to fashion. I also find that grinding away is a lot like distance running. Eventually, through repeated strokes which take little thinking, it puts your mind in a different place, relaxing it. We could all use a bit more of that in our present-day society.

Given the amount of work that I expect to put into making this tool (if I ever do), I would highly value it. In archaeology we call this curation. People would have valued these mauls because of the effort involved making them. If people were not carrying their mauls from one camp to another, then they would have carefully cached them for safety. Or there was some sort of agreement among families using the same camp, to leave the mauls after use. In a previous post (https://canehdianstories.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2016&action=edit), on stone axes in Australia, I noted how highly prized they were among the Australian aborigines. Similar processes might have been operating here in the Americas with these mauls.

Indigenous people on the West Coast of Canada used more ground-stone technology to fashion stone tools than people on the prairies. The major reason may be related to access to more relatively softer (than quartzite) types of stone, such as basalt, for fashioning ground stone tools. I’m making my ground stone maul out of quartzite, the hardest and most common material available on the prairies. If I had a choice, knowing what I already know about this process, quartzite would not have been my first choice. Yet, most ground-stone mauls on the prairies are made from quartzite. The trade-off, however, is that a quartzite maul would not break as easily as mauls made of softer types of rocks.

I just finished reading an article on how First Nations peoples in British Columbia, Canada, made nephrite adzes. Nephrite, on the Mohs hardness scale, is between 6 – 6.5. This material is slightly less hard than my wonder cobble, but still not that easy to carve. According to author, Hilary Stewart, people sawed nephrite boulders using a sandstone saw, with sand and water added for greater abrasion.

Maybe I’ll use a larger piece of sandstone next, and add a sand/water compound for more grit. And, a saw makes more sense since there is a greater surface area working to groove my cobble. With the flake burin I could only use a forward motion. Thus, a sawing tool having a greater edge area and back and forth motion should be much more efficient than a tiny tip of stone being pushed in only one direction. However, having said that, often what we think works best, doesn’t always materialize into reality. That’s why experimenting with these techniques is so important.

But, what kind of edge should the stone saw have to be most effective?

Stay tuned. I’ll check in again after reaching another sort of milestone with my project. However, I’m going to rethink what type of grinding tool to use and what it should be made out of. That’s what happens when, after four hours of hard work, you can barely see any progress. Suddenly creativity sets in.