Rhyolite Quarry in Newfoundland

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tim	Rhyolite Quarry in Newfoundland	Lead	[-]
Posts: 32 (06/22/09 7:46 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None I had a chance to visit a massive rhyolite quarry in Newfoundland over the weekend. Photos and story are on my blog. It was used by at least a half dozen different Indian and Palaeoeskimo cultures over a 5000 year period. An amazing place, if you ever get a chance to visit this part of the world! Elfshot: Sticks and Stones
hardawaypoints		#1	[-]
Posts: 368 (06/22/09 8:18 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Cool! We have rhyolite here too, but nowhere near that large a scale. The majority of the ancient stone tools from this area were made from it. That much debitage is astounding. Thanks for posting this. Jim
lebaronr		#2	[-]
Posts: 107 (06/22/09 8:20 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	looks like you had a great time! i would love to get back to newfoundland some day, when i first went all i could do with myself is skateboard; i think this information would lead to a far more interesting visit. so far my favorite canadian land to roam. thanks for an interesting read, reuben
tim		#3	[-]
Posts: 33 (06/22/09 8:52 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	This quarry is pretty unique for Newfoundland. There are some really nice, fine grained cherts to be found in the province, but they tend to be very fractured and its tough to find anything that could be knapped into anything more than a couple inches long. This rhyolite quarry provides one of the only sources of knappable stone in the area that lets you make larger tools or bifacial cores. Its located near the town of Burnside, which is in an enclave just north of Terra Nova National Park. The archaeologist who has been working on the site runs daily boat tours during the summer months to the quarry and nearby campsite called The Beaches. The volume of debitage at the quarry is mind blowing - in some places the cores, flakes and hammerstones are a meter thick. Elfshot: Sticks and Stones
mammut		#4	[-]
Posts: 198 (06/22/09 2:39 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Thanks for sharing.
eskimoboy		#5	[-]
Posts: 4188 (06/22/09 2:45 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Photos?
tim		#6	[-]
Posts: 34 (06/22/09 3:30 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Photo 1: A view of the Bloody Bay Cove rhyolite quarry from the hill opposite it. The grey talus slope in the middle of the mountain is made up of flakes, cores and hammerstones. It looks a little like a landslide, but its actually 1800 square metres of flaked rhyolite up to 1 metre thick. (The archaeologist who discovered the site, Laurie McLean took this photo, I took the rest) Photo 2: A similar talus slope on the opposite side of the mountain -- you are looking down on a massive slope of debitage. Photo 3: A Close-up of the flakes, cores, and hammerstones at the top of the talus slope shown in Photo 2. Photo 4: Piles of in situ flakes like this cover the entire mountain. Elfshot: Sticks and Stones
eskimoboy		#7	[-]
Posts: 4189 (06/22/09 3:47 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Those are some good photos! Seems funny it took so long before they found it.
Woodland Roamer		#8	[-]
Posts: 670 (06/22/09 5:28 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Wow, that is an amazing site and nice pics. Thanks for posting. Alan
tim		#9	[-]
Posts: 35 (06/23/09 5:35 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	eskimoboy wrote: Those are some good photos! Seems funny it took so long before they found it. There's still a lot of untouched country in Newfoundland and Labrador. This particular quarry is on the coast, but faces away from the water. Unless you walk over it and understand how stone tools are made, you would probably think that its just a natural scree slope. The nearest community (Burnside) is a 20 minute power boat ride away and apparently there were some stories in the town that the Indians used to carve stone steps on this particular mountain. The Beothuk were the last group to use the quarry and they have been extinct since 1829. Its possible that 200 years ago, or more, the fishermen who lived in the area saw or heard the Beothuk hammering on the mountain side and mis-interpreted that activity. Elfshot: Sticks and Stones

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Rhyolite Quarry in Newfoundland

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