Excavating Oneida artifacts at the Brunk site
“I couldn’t imagine what it was like until I tried it myself. I had pictured the dart going a lot faster,” said Alex Jurado ’15, “but it’s more of a lob up toward a certain point and then it falls.” The fact that people like Tarbell who can “bring technology like this to life” are so close to Colgate is a rare opportunity, said Groleau.
“What I found really interesting was that they used compound spears with a main fixed shaft and a dart at the end so that when you stab the animal and then pull back, the dart would stay in the animal and then you can reload; it really showed how advanced this culture was.” — Alex Jurado ’15
A lesson in spear throwing from Mike Tarbell
Back at the lab, Scott Brayden ’13 and his classmates sort and catalogue items they found at the Brunk site. “In their reports, they interpret the results in an attempt to reconstruct the activities that may have occurred at the site,” said Professor Kerber. “In the final part of their paper, they compare what we know from this site with what we know of at least one other Oneida site to look at similarities and differences.”
Andrew Daddio (4)
she said. “Their understanding of this place changes as they think about deep time.” Objects can only show so much on their own; with decomposition of wood and sinew, artifacts are often incomplete. So, in teaching about stone tools and methods for knowing about them, for example, there’s nothing better than bringing in an expert. Perched on the edge of the glacial terrace forming the front lawn of Merrill House, Mike Tarbell sets a wooden, arrow-like spear into the cupped end of a j-shaped handle. He plants his feet and deftly launches the spear across the descending hillside. “Who wants to try it?” asks Tarbell, of the Mohawk Nation Turtle Clan. Groleau invited him to give a demonstration of native tools for her archaeology students and Michael Taylor’s Core: Iroquois class. A professor at SUNY Cobleskill and recently retired educator at the Iroquois Indian Museum, Tarbell has dedicated his life to studying the material culture of pre-contact Iroquois people. Along the way, he became an expert in traditional flintknapping and toolmaking, replicating bows, arrows, knives, war clubs, and other items such as the spear thrower, which predates the bow and arrow and was used in group hunting on terrain just like the Merrill House lawn.
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