Wooden Paddle Handle
date: label: Accession Date
content: 9 Jan 1931
name: label: Collector
content: Dr. Henry B. Collins Jr.
label: Donor Name
content: Dr. Henry B. Collins Jr.
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "House # 7".
label: Notes
content: One piece of A355720 and A355721 illus. Fig. 18 p. 40 in Anichtchenko, Evguenia. 2017. "Reconstructing The St. Lawrence Island Kayak; From Forgotten Watercraft to a Bering Sea Maritime Network." Alaska Journal of Anthropology. 15 (1&2) : 25-48. "St. Lawrence kayaks were propelled by single-bladed paddles with handgrips. The St. Lawrence archaeological record contains many full-scale and miniature examples, but it is hard to differentiate between those used for kayaks and umiaks, if there was in fact a difference between kayak and umiak paddles. ... Although there are several exceptions, most extant St. Lawrence Island paddles are composite, meaning that blade and shaft were fashioned out of two separate pieces of wood and then bound together. Artifacts NMNH A355720 and NMNH A355721 from House 7 of the Ievoghiyaq site at the western tip of St. Lawrence illustrate how the blade was attached to the shaft. NMNH A355720 is a 59-cm-long and 9.5-cm-wide paddle blade fragment with a broken tip. The blade's neck is scarphed for attachment to the shaft and has two peg holes with remains of a bluish-greenish residue, possibly clay adhesive applied to secure the joint. NMNH A355721 is a fragment of the corresponding paddle shaft with similar diagonal scarph and peg holes that line up with those at the neck of the blade and are smeared with the same clay substance (Fig. 18). In addition to pegs and adhesive, the pieces were secured with two rows of lashing, as evident from the discoloration on the "neck" of the blade above the scarph. As discussed above, the shape of the shaft and rectangular mortise carved into it suggest that the shaft was made out of a recycled kayak gunwale. The dates yielded by radiocarbon analysis of this artifact attest that composite paddle technology was in place by the thirteenth century ad and, judging from ethnographic samples, lasted until the beginning of the twentieth century."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 6 Oct 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Gambell / St. Lawrence Island, Bering Sea / St. Lawrence Quad, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Archaeology
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 108529
label: USNM Number
content: A355721-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Boat Paddle