Chemical Differentiation between Immersed and Dry Wood Samples in Nunavik (Northern Quebec, Canada): Preliminary Results

Steelandt, Stéphanie; Pierson-Wickmann, Anne-Catherine; Bhiry, Najat; Marguerie, Dominique; Coz, Martine Bouhnik‐Le

doi:10.1657/aaar0014-082

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Numerous methods have been employed to identify the chemical signatures indicative of drifted or seawater-inundated wood. These include combined spectrophotometric and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis of wood ash samples from timber inundated during the 2011 Tohoku tsunami in Japan (Yamada et al 2014), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis of experimental and archaeological charcoal from Patagonia, Argentina (Caruso Fermé et al 2015), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis of experimental and modern seawater-inundated wood from northern Canada (Steelandt et al 2016), and electrical conductivity measurements of modern fresh and drifted wood along with archaeological wood samples (Mooney 2017). These studies have had some success.…”

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Timber as a Marine Resource: Exploitation of Arctic Driftwood in the North Atlantic

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The North Atlantic islands of the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland have always been relatively poor in terms of native timber resources, due to their cold climate and exposed topography. Nevertheless, timber was vital to the material culture of the Norse settlers of these islands, and driftwood often met this need. As in subarctic Norway, where trees are also scarce, driftwood use and ownership were prescribed in medieval law codes. Historical documentary evidence shows that wealthy landowners bought driftwood rights as valuable assets, and ethnohistorical sources reveal a wide range of local and regional customs related to driftwood exploitation. However, driftwood was an unstable resource, and its delivery depended on a range of unpredictable factors related to climate and ocean currents. There is also ongoing debate regarding the relative importance of imported timber, which is for example often referenced in the Icelandic sagas. The use of driftwood is difficult to demonstrate through macroscopic, microscopic, or (geo-)chemical analysis. Similarities in the microscopic anatomy of boreal wood taxa preclude definitive provenancing through taxonomic analysis, and material traces of immersion in seawater are often either impermanent or ambiguous, especially in archaeological wood remains. This paper presents a comprehensive review of current historical and archaeological research on the exploitation of driftwood timber in the Medieval North Atlantic and explores potential future directions in this field. Furthermore, it asserts that this line of research should be pursued with some urgency, as anthropogenic climate change threatens both driftwood delivery and the preservation of archaeological wood remains.

show abstract

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Timber as a Marine Resource: Exploitation of Arctic Driftwood in the North Atlantic

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Submersion of wood will result in exchange of chemical components with the surrounding water and mask primary signatures. The Sr concentration of seawater is about 8 ppm, in river water it is about 50 ppb (Brems et al, 2013;Steelandt et al, 2016). There are both crustal (weathering) and mantle (volcanic) contributions to the total Sr in sea water.…”

Section: Strontium Isotopic Composition Of (Waterlogged) Woodmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main contributions of Sr in river systems are weathering of the local bedrock and rainfall and runoff water, therefore, the Sr isotopic composition of rivers varies geographically (depending on the local bedrock inputs and precipitation). Steelandt et al (2016) performed some experiments to determine the influence of waterlogging on the elemental composition of wood. They placed wood samples for a week in the Hudson River and noted a 3-fold increase of the bulk Sr concentration after just one week in the river.…”

Section: Strontium Isotopic Composition Of (Waterlogged) Woodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determining the Sr isotopic composition of waterlogged wood – Cleaning more is not always better

Ham-Meert

Rodler

Waight

et al. 2020

Journal of Archaeological Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sr isotopes represent a potential means to trace the provenance of archaeological timber. Such tracing allows us to examine the transport, by past people, of wooden objects and of wood and timber as a raw material. However, issues exist with the mobility of Sr and addition of exogenous Sr during waterlogging. This paper presents a systematic assessment of cleaning methods to remove exogeneous Sr from waterlogged wood. Neither a large number of Milli-Q washes, a combination of MQ and Hydrofluoric acid (HF) or alpha-cellulose extraction were able to retrieve the original signature. It was also shown that ashing leads to higher uncertainties due to the smaller amount of Sr available for analysis, this method will only be really useful when large samples are available, is not recommended for small archaeological samples. Our studies also highlight that the distribution of Sr in waterlogged wood is highly heterogeneous.

show abstract

“…of fat increases the efficiency of driftwood and therefore this fuel combination is "improved" and places them on the same level of fuel as wood in a forest environment. This observed difference may be due to certain properties of driftwood, such as mineral salts [sodium (Na+)] soaked in the wood cell structure due to seawater contamination (Caruso Fermé et al, 2014;Yamada et al, 2014;Steelandt et al, 2016;Mooney, 2018). This could depend on the consequences of drifting (washout, drying, etc.)…”

Section: Tablementioning

confidence: 99%

Ancient arctic pyro-technologies: Experimental fires to document the impact of animal origin fuels on wood combustion

Vanlandeghem

Desachy

Buonasera³

et al. 2020

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Remains of animal fuel and driftwood fires are evident in Birnirk and Thule sites of northwestern Alaska (AD 11th-14th century). To better understand these fires, a robust experimental protocol was designed to study the effects of multi-fuel fires, in particular, the addition of fat to woody fuels. In Arctic regions, permafrost and climate conditions do not allow for the development of tree vegetation. Marine mammal oil and bones served as fuel substitutes, as did locally shrubby vegetation and driftwood accumulations. The excavation of numerous thick burnt areas in many Arctic sites confirms the use of multiple fuels including wood, animal fat, and bone in large quantities. These burnt areas correspond to a wide range of fire activities-cooking, smoking, firing ceramics, and others-but the actions and effects of each fuel are still poorly known. We describe conditions necessary to achieve a reproducible and statistically representative experimental fire sample. We compared fuel combinations of driftwood or non-drifted wood, animal fat, and caribou bones over 55 combustions. Experiments were conducted under controlled conditions in a laboratory in France and on the coast of northwestern Alaska. We found that a minimum of 30 test assays was needed to obtain statistically significant results but many research avenues can be obtained from smaller series. We obtained key figures and descriptive data on the impact of different animal fuels on fire temperature and duration, as well as on the firewood spectrum, with important implications for the representation of different woody fuels and the fragmentation patterns of charcoals. We report a relatively rapid rate of formation for blackened and crusted sediments when seal oil is burned along with driftwood. This means that thick accumulations of burnt material may not be a reliable signal of long-term occupations and that the relationship between the duration of site occupation and fuel management deserves further study.

show abstract

Chemical Differentiation between Immersed and Dry Wood Samples in Nunavik (Northern Quebec, Canada): Preliminary Results

Cited by 10 publications

References 30 publications

Timber as a Marine Resource: Exploitation of Arctic Driftwood in the North Atlantic

Timber as a Marine Resource: Exploitation of Arctic Driftwood in the North Atlantic

Determining the Sr isotopic composition of waterlogged wood – Cleaning more is not always better

Ancient arctic pyro-technologies: Experimental fires to document the impact of animal origin fuels on wood combustion

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About