Arrow Shaft 1976.14.13
Octavius Seowtewa: But if you look at it really close you can see the sap. I wish we could take a photo of that and send it back. In order for it not to fray they put piñon sap on it, and when it dries it like that jewelry they make out of amber. Take a look at it. The whole arrow shaft has got that piñon sap on it. It’s that sap that turned dark. On the white gloves when I touched it didn’t turn black.
Michael Gchachu: Just right there, there’s a lot of hair right there.
Octavius Seowtewa: Take a look at it here. Yellow spots. When it went into the cracks it didn’t get that patina (the dark color) it stayed yellow, but the outside is what turned black.
Fumi Arakawa: It’s seeming like its’s some kind of glue.
Octavius Seowtewa: Yeah, it is, and Presley (off camera) said that it’s used to waterproof the shaft.
Fumi Arakawa: Cool.
Octavius Seowtewa: So, when I first saw it here, I could see that sap. You need to take a look at it again?
Fumi Arakawa: It’s dark and…
Octavius Seowtewa: You can see like the flakes, a crystal.
Fumi Arakawa: Yes, I see that. What are they?
Octavius Seowtewa: It’s dried piñon sap.
Fumi Arakawa: Aha! Ah, yea, I can see that. They put a kind of…
Octavius Seowtewa: a shield on it.
Fumi Arakawa: Cool.
Octavius Seowtewa: Look at this little strand it came off and you could see…take a look at it and look at the shaft itself. A little piece of sinew sticking up.
Individual off camera: Are you guys going to do carbon dating on this?
Fumi Arakawa: Not at this point and I think we’ve got to consult with you and other people if we’re going to do it.
Octavius Seowtewa: But there is a date…they determined the date of the habitation for Chavez Cave.
Fumi Arakawa: It’s about 500 to 900 (BC) but they found a piece of atl-atl equipment, a part. So that means the people were there for a long time. Do you think that people decorated and put the colors, it has some kind of style?
Octavius Seowtewa: No, you can see the pine sap that was put on there. Presley said that it was put on there to make it water resistant especially with the end of the tip where they wanted to put their bow string, they wanted to make sure that it would stay and have that notch where it would be used for throwing the arrow. What made it so interesting here is this end might have had a cut in it, like this. So they probably just filled it with pine sap to waterproof it and that pine sap actually went inside and you can see it in there. It actually, penetrated, see that line there that’s where the break was, and they just filled it in with pine sap and you could see the pine sap its still in there. If you look at it through a microscope there’s pine sap that’s inside the shaft.
Fumi Arakawa: So, they left it in the cave because it’s got broken?
Octavius Seowtewa: Yea. But, like I said yesterday they left it not accidentally but before purpose for us to come back and start talking about it and identify what it is and how it was preserved and how it was actually used by waterproofing the phragmites shaft with the pine sap.