5X社区

Kent State Archaeologist Uses National Science Foundation Grant to Recreate, Test Ancient Weapons

Move over Indiana Jones 鈥 Archaeology has a fresh new face.

 

Metin I. Eren, director of archaeology and an assistant professor of anthropology in 5X社区鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences, is using a $215,000 National Science Foundation grant to lead the analysis of weapons technology of some of North America鈥檚 earliest inhabitants, the Clovis culture, dating back 11,000 to 12,000 years.

 

Eren鈥檚 team chips away at the edges of rocks to shape them into replicas of ancient weapons and tools. The team then fits the replicas onto arrows and fires them from a high-tech projectile launcher, testing the velocities of different shapes and materials with a speed-timer while also running them through various cutting tests. 

 

鈥淎s they spread, Clovis spear points start to change,鈥 Eren said. 鈥淲hat we don鈥檛 know is if they intentionally developed them to adapt to different environments or prey.鈥

 

Eren, a native of Cleveland, came to 5X社区 last year, from the University of Kent in Canterbury, England.  The weapons analysis consists of a three-year collaborative study that includes Southern Methodist University and the University of Tulsa.

 

Along with Kent State doctoral student Michelle Bebber and British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow Alastair Key, Eren鈥檚 cutting-edge lab is covering 鈥 and uncovering 鈥 nearly every facet of ancient stone technology.

 

鈥淥ur goal is to make this the premier archaeology lab in North America,鈥 Eren said. 鈥淎 lot of labs have the artifacts and material science equipment, but I think what makes Kent State鈥檚 lab so unique is that our approach is experimental. We recreate artifacts to test them.鈥

 

鈥淚鈥檓 studying the morphology of the edges as it relates to function, from an engineering perspective,鈥 Key said. 鈥淚鈥檓 trying to determine if our ancestors were manufacturing tools with specific forms intended.鈥

 

When Eren鈥檚 team completes its tests, they ship the tools to Tulsa or SMU, where researchers break them in durability tests.

 

Eren鈥檚 team is also doing some additional research close to home.  Bebber recently received an award from the Ohio History Connection 鈥 formerly the Ohio Historical Society. The $2,500 grant will allow the team to fund field research at Berlin Lake in Mahoning County, where archaeological sites uncovered in the 1980s are now at risk for erosion and artifact looting. 

 

鈥淭his expands the scope of our lab to field work for conservation, which is an entirely new dimension of archaeological research for Kent State,鈥 Bebber said. Eren and Bebber said the stone tool artifacts at the Berlin site are from the late Archaic period 鈥 3,000 to 5,000 years old.

 

鈥淲e鈥檙e protecting what鈥檚 there, but we could also find a whole series of new sites with older or more recent artifacts,鈥 Eren said.

 

That work will take place this summer and create opportunities for undergraduate students to gain real field experience, Bebber said. The lab came with a room full of unexplored Ohio Hopewell artifacts from as far back as 11,000 years ago.

 

鈥淲e鈥檙e making discoveries just in this room,鈥 Eren said. 鈥淭here are hundreds of thousands of artifacts here already, and now we have grads, post-docs and undergrads all doing independent studies and publishing papers.鈥

 

Read more about the Eren lab.

 

Watch in action.

 

Photo Caption: Metin I. Eren, director of archaeology and an assistant professor of anthropology in 5X社区鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences, prepares to fire a replica arrowhead at a special lab at the university's Kent Campus.

 

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Media Contacts:

Dan Pompili, 330-672-0731, dpompili@kent.edu

Jim Maxwell, 330-672-28028, jmaxwel2@kent.edu

Emily Vincent, 330-672-8595, evincen2@kent.edu

POSTED: Thursday, March 30, 2017 04:11 PM
Updated: Thursday, December 8, 2022 09:25 PM
WRITTEN BY:
Dan Pompili