Home / ID Guides / Plants and Perishables / Wood and Cane 95
- Axe Handle
Description: Prehistoric axe handle, encrusted with salt; a bit of yucca fiber tie still clings to the end. Dimensions: 7.1 cm from end, stick thinned for 17.4 cm by removal of wood from one side (55.8 x 2.6 cm). Collection: On display at the Tuzigoot National Monument Visitor Center (catalog card). - Hafted Axe
Cultural Period: Ancestral Puebloan Description: Fully-grooved stone axe hafted with a wooden loop handle, collected by Byron Cummings in 1909. The axe head is made of basalt. The bit and sides are polished, but the back of the head is rough - either pecked or used for pounding. The handle is looped around the lateral groove in the axe head, and smaller split twigs or vines hold the handle and axe head in place. Red pigment is still apparent on the loop around the axe head. Dimensions: 4 L x 3 1/4 W x 2 7/8 T (axe). Collection: On display at Navajo National Monument (Catalog No. 433). - Hafted Axe
Description: A 3/4 grooved stone axe in its original wooden haft. Dimensions: 7.5 inch long handle, axe 4 inches. Collection: On display at the Montezuma Castle National Monument Visitor Center (Catalog No. MOCA 157). - Matting and Basket Fragments
Cultural Period: Ancestral Puebloan, Atsinna Pueblo (A.D. 1275 – mid-1300s) Description: This mount contains the remains of three different perishable artifacts. The upper left is a rim fragment of a wicker basket. Laurie Webster, of the University of Arizona, describes this basket as having a 1/1 interlaced weave structure with a multiple-element warp, and a rim selvage with 360 degree wrapping around a group of perhaps four twigs. Each warp twig is 1.5 - 1.8 mm in diameter, and the warp channel is approximately 2.0 cm wide. The weft consists of a single twig, 1.0 mm in diameter. There are eight rows of weft per cm. The second artifact (bottom left) consists of the partial base of a wickerwork basket identified by Laurie Webster as having a 1/1 interlacing weave structure with a multiple-element warp. Of the six warp channels in the outermost row of the basket, three contain two twigs and four contain three twigs. The average width of the warp channels is 2.0 cm. The diameter of each warp twig is approximately 2.0 mm, and each weft twig is between 1.5 and 2.0 mm. The basket has seven weft rows per cm. Archaeobotanist Karen Adams identified the raw material as possibly oak (Quercus sp.). A brown substance with off-white specks adhering to the upper surface of the basket may be food residue. The fragments on the right are part of a large, deteriorated, consolidated mat-like object. Laurie Webster identified the weave structure as 1/1 plaiting, and Karen Adams identified the raw material as five-to-ten year old split oak (Quercus sp.) stems. The warp elements are 4.0-6.0 mm in diameter and spaced about 2.0 cm apart, and the weft elements are about 6.0 mm wide and spaced about 2.0 cm apart. Dimensions: 4.5 cm-long by 5.5 cm-wide (upper left); 7.3 cm by 11.0 cm (bottom left); 9.0 cm long and 21.0 cm wide (largest fragment on the right). Provenience: LA 99 (Atsinna Pueblo), RM 17, Fill. Collection: National Park Service, El Morro. - Agave Knife
Description: Hafted agave knife with an agave stalk handle. The stone knife blade was flaked along the edges and then pushed through the agave stalk while the stalk was still green (there are stretch cracks around the pointed end of the stone). This tool was well-used and exhibits extreme use-polish on the stone knife. Dimensions: Stalk-40.2 cm long, 4.5 cm diameter; Blade-14 x 9 cm. Collection: On display at the Tuzigoot National Monument Visitor Center (catalog card).