With the easing of lockdown, it has once again been poossible to carry out experimental work at the YEAR. Jess Bates, Greta Pepper and myself spent a day back in August working on some ideas about methods of hafting in relation to shale bead production at Star Carr.

Hafts are not preserved in great abundance at Star Carr and there is little direct evidence in relation to drilling activities specifically, but microwear analysis does support a hafted working strategy in at least some instances.

In this experiment, we elected to try a longer haft that allowed the tool to be rotated rapidly between the hands, as demonstrated in the GIF. This method certainly allowed for beads to be produced fairly rapidly and necessitated different body gestures to that of using the awl in the hand without a haft.

The awls in this experiment will be a valuable inclusion into our microwear database, not only for the polish generated on the tip from drilling, but also the proximal part of the tool in the haft, where again polish has developed from rubbing and movement in the haft during use. As the project develops, we will try more variants of this experiment, such as changing the hafting type by using a birch bark glue.