Hi Barbara,
Very interesting and important project, and an excellent and informative
video as well. I do, however, have some doubts about the interpretation in
the video of the "gunflints." While they may have been sold as such, the
extreme battering exhibited by all the specimens shown suggests that they
were primarily used as strike-a-lights with a fire steel to start fires.
It is, of course, possible they were initially used in flintlock firearms
and then used to start fires; cheaper than matches. This was a common
practice in North America, especially at remote locations such as fur trade
posts and frontier sites during the flintlock era, and I'm pretty sure this
was done elsewhere as well. Flints used in firearms generally only exhibit
concussion scars on the striking edge or edges (if a double-edged flint).
Once the striking edge became blunted or was severely chipped (which could
happen the first time it was used), it was useless for firearms so finding
severely battered flints suggests a use other than that, at least at the
end of their life. It should also be pointed out that both the British and
French flintknappers produced actual strike-a-lights shaped much like
gunflints so that cannot be ruled out either.
Cheers,
Karlis
On Tue, Apr 2, 2019 at 11:04 AM Barbara Voss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear colleagues (with apologies for cross-posting),
>
> For the past five years, I have been part of a transnational,
> interdisciplinary team of researchers who have been using historical
> archaeology techniques to investigate the home villages of 19th century
> Chinese migrants.
>
> I'm pleased to announce the public launch of the website for our first
> project - the Cangdong Village Project (https://cangdong.stanford.edu/).
>
> In 2016 and 2017, we conducted surface survey and subsurface testing of
> deposits from the late Qing (1875-1912) and Early Republic (1912-1927)
> periods. We are now analyzing the recovered artifacts and ecofacts to learn
> how village residents were affected by migration, and to gain a deeper
> understanding of the cultural backgrounds of Chinese who immigrated to the
> United States in the 19th century.
> The highlight of the website is filmmaker Barre Fong's documentary,
> "Making Ties: The Cangdong Village Project." You can view a trailer here (
> https://vimeo.com/326082052) and the full-length film is streaming on the
> project website (https://cangdong.stanford.edu/documentary-film).
>
> A short article about the Cangdong Village Project is available at:
> https://news.stanford.edu/2019/04/02/digging-clues-lives-19th-century-chinese-migrants/
> .
>
> We'll continue to develop the website in the weeks ahead, adding full
> Chinese translation to the website and to the documentary, an English
> language technical report of our investigation, and a teaching guide with
> lesson plans for classroom viewings of the documentary film.
>
> Because this project is among the first archaeological studies of Chinese
> migrants' home villages, we are committed to full public access to our
> research results. To that end, all materials on the Cangdong Village
> Project website are released under a Creative Commons
> Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, so they can be freely
> downloaded, streamed, shared, and distributed.
>
> Please help us spread the word about this resource to colleagues and
> students who may be interested.
>
> My heartfelt thanks to the three partner organizations (Guangdong
> Qiaoxiang Cultural Research Center at Wuyi University, the Guangdong
> Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the Stanford
> Archaeology Center), project funders, cooperating organizations, team
> members, and especially the residents of Cangdong Village who so warmly
> welcomed our research team.
>
> --Barb
> -----------------------------------------------
> Barbara L. Voss, Associate Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 450 Serra Mall, Bldg. 50, Main Quad
> Stanford University
> Stanford CA 94305-2034
> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> https://web.stanford.edu/dept/anthropology/cgi-bin/web/?q=node/75
> https://stanford.academia.edu/BarbaraVoss
>
>
>
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