An Edmonton couple is perhaps residing on a chunk of historical past.
Final 12 months, Jennifer Yeoman and her husband Hector Lomack have been doing a little landscaping of their yard after they discovered a curious-looking black rock.
“As Hector was digging out the entrance, I used to be out right here round and about, and he got here to me with a giant black rock, and he stated: ‘What’s this?’” stated Yeoman. “It’s the oddest piece of rock I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s a sheer large piece of glass.”
That black rock was a 4.6-pound chunk of obsidian core — which is volcanic glass that varieties when lava cools quickly with minimal crystal progress — and never normally present in Alberta because of the lack of, properly, volcanoes.
The most important obsidian core within the province is on show on the Royal Alberta Museum.
“It turned on the market’s just one different rock discovered that measurement in Alberta thus far, and it occurred to be our rock,” stated Yeoman.
It’s an additional thrilling discovery for Yeoman as she’d at all times dreamt of being an archaeologist however plans modified when she turned a mother.
Now that her youngsters are grown up, her dream is being reignited.
She introduced her findings to the RAM the place their archaeology crew took over.
“We observed distinctive traits that indicated it was human-made and specifically that every of those little semi-lunar bites listed here are the place a flake was struck off,” stated Kyle Forsythe, curator of Archaeology of the RAM.
Pre-contact individuals reshaped or flint-knapped obsidian to make instruments like arrowheads.
“If it does occur to be genuine, we will be taught extra about individuals’s uncooked materials preferences and situate that inside bigger commerce networks,” stated Forsythe.
They do realize it needed to come from an space with volcanic exercise — however thankfully, no two volcanoes are alike.
“Each single volcano has a chemical — it’s virtually like a fingerprint,” stated Forsythe.
Utilizing what’s known as x-ray fluorescent spectroscopy (XRF), they matched that fingerprint to a volcano in southern Idaho.
“That’s really a supply that was utilized in pre-contact instances by Indigenous individuals in Alberta,” stated Forsythe.
“All the things about this piece advised that it may very well be a official artifact.”
“We might have been a tool-making centre right here for Indigenous peoples,” stated Yeoman.
The museum turned to their social media group for extra enter.
“We bought lots of response from varied group members who rightfully recognized that there’s a pretty widespread flintknapping group in Alberta and in order that raised the likelihood that this may very well be a reproduction that was both manufactured by a scholar in an anthropology class or presumably another flintknapper who was doing experimental archaeology,” stated Forsythe.
This new data helps put the thriller collectively, however extra work must be executed.
“If we had gone to the placement and we had discovered it in situ — which is an archaeological time period for within the place the place it was resting — relying on what we discovered there that might have modified our interpretation a method or one other,” stated Forsythe.
The RAM archaeology crew is now planning to return to Yeoman’s yard and switch it into an archeological website. Museum workers will dig it as much as search for extra clues.
Yeoman can be there, residing her childhood dream.
“That is our final nice journey and we’re nonetheless adventuring,” stated Yeoman.
For those who discover an artifact within the floor, Forsythe counsel leaving it the place it was discovered, taking an image, marking the placement of the merchandise, and contacting the museum.
“It’s solely by way of advantage of our group relationships, that we’re in a position to reconstruct the previous,” stated Forsythe.
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