Animation of the Day: Anatolian Lion Scapula from the Site of Köşk Höyük, located in central Turkey

by Bernard K. Means, Director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory (VCL)

Today’s animation is the scapula of an Anatolian lion recovered from the site of Köşk Höyük, which is located in central Turkey. The scapula of this extinct animal was made available for scanning by  Ben Arbuckle, who is an anthropology faculty member at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC-CH).  It was scanned during a workshop I led at UNC-CH’s Davis Library entitled “Applications of Digital Visualization through 3D Laser Scanning and 3D Printing.” Details on this scanning workshop can be found here. Schnitzler (2011) discusses the distribution of the North African-Asian lion through time, including providing archaeological evidence. Dr. Arbuckle’s zooarchaeological studies at Köşk Höyük are available here.

UPDATE: The following information is provided by Dr. Arbuckle:

Specimen KSK16067 is a portion of a scapula (shoulder blade) of an extinct subspecies of lion (Panthera leo) which inhabited Turkey, Syria and Iran until perhaps as late as the 19^th century. It was recovered from the site Köşk Höyük, located in the Niğde province of central Turkey during the 2008 excavation season. Köşk Höyük represents the remains of a small village occupied in the late Neolithic and Early and Middle Chalcolithic periods (c. 6200-4500 BC). Although its inhabitants were farmers and herders, they also hunted abundant wild game in the region including wild horses and asses, deer, boar, and bear. This specimen, the only big cat to the recovered at Köşk was found in area E/7 in a shallow pit feature filled with burned debris including bone and charcoal dating to c. 6000 BC.

Schnitzler, Annik

2011  Past and present distribution of the North African–Asian lion subgroup: a review. Mammal Review 41:220–243.

Animation of the Day: Pipe Stem Made into a Flute from New York

by Bernard K. Means, Director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory

 

Today’s animation is a white clay tobacco pipe stem that has been drilled to function as a flute. It was scanned at the New York State Museum (NYSM) in July 2014. The NYSM’s Susan Winchell-Sweeney provides us with the following information:

Believed to be 50% complete and made circa 1715. It was one of several objects recovered from the fill of
an 18th-c. red brick cistern on Lot 14 of the Broad Financial Center site.This site was situated on the block
bounded by Whitehall, Pearl, Bridge, and Broad streets in lower Manhattan, NY, and was excavated in 1983-
84 under the direction of Dr. Joel Grossman of Greenhouse Consultants, Inc. for HRO International. This site
was located on the original 17th century island of Manhattan as opposed to landfill or man-made land.
Excavation revealed deposits and features dating from the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam through the
mid-19th century. There are materials associated with the c. 1650 warehouse of Augustine Heermans, a
slave trader and tobacco merchant (including a Dutch token dating 1590-the oldest European artifact
excavated in New York) and domestic deposits from 17th and early 18th century inhabitants of the block.
Artifacts include domestic items from the privy of Dr. Hans Kierstede (the first doctor of the Dutch West
India Company) and his wife Sarah, who was Peter Stuyvesant’s Native American interpreter; a c. 1680
basket filled with Native American and European goods including delft tiles, hand-wrought nails, wampum,
glass trade beads, thimbles and pins, 17 marbles of various sizes and a wooden game board. English
Colonial artifacts include 7,000 fragments of 17th and 18th century clay tobacco pipes made at the Robert
Tippet shop in Bristol, England, and probably shipped to a local tavern on the block, a sword guard, candle
snuffer, candlestick holder, and a delft posset pot. Many other domestic materials date to Federalist and
Jacksonian New York.

Animation of the Day: Zoomorphic Smoking Pipe with Brass Eye in Color

by Bernard K. Means, Director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory

This clay smoking pipe from the collections of The State Museum of Pennsylvania was made and used by the Susquehannock Indians during the later 1600s A.D.   and was recovered from the Byrd Leibhart Site, located in York County, Pennsylvania. Archaeologists originally identified the animal as representing a bear but our research shows that it was likely a Fisher or Fisher Cat, which is a member of the weasel family. The eyes of the Fisher cat were made with brass tacks traded from European settlers.  One has fallen out. A video produced for Instagram by Archaeology in the Community in the Virtual Curation Laboratory features the Virtual Curation Laboratory’s Rachael Hulvey discussing the object, using a printed version made with a MakerBot Replicator.  The InstaGram video can be found here:http://instagram.com/p/jFcjJ4qqU1/

Animation of the Day: Mocha Ware Vessel from New York

by Bernard K. Means, Director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory

 

Today’s animation is a mocha ware vessel from New York. It was scanned at the New York State Museum (NYSM) in July 2014. The NYSM’s Susan Winchell-Sweeney provides us with the following information:

This bowl was recovered from the Sullivan Street site, bounded by McDougal, Sullivan, Thompson and West 3rd Streets and Washington Square Park in New York City, NY. Approximately 200,000 artifacts were recovered from the site. One important domestic assemblage illustrates the upper middle-class lifestyle of wealthy Dr. Robson whose house faced Washington Square; It is from Dr. Robson’s assemblage of household ceramics, an example of “every day” dishes, to which this mocha ware bowl is attributed. Robson is thought to be the prototype of Dr. Roper, one of the protagonists in the novel “Washington Square” (later made into the play and film, “The Heiress”).

The dendritic pattern clearly visible on this mocha ware bowl 3D animation is created by releasing drops of “mocha tea” solution containing urine and tobacco juice onto the wet clay-slipped surface of a ceramic vessel before firing. The design spreads instantly when the acid solution comes into contact with the wet clay slip.

Animation of the Day: Tenth Vessel from the Museu De Arqueologia E Etnologia

by Bernard K. Means, Director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory

 

Today’s animation is the tenth vessel from the the Museu De Arqueologia E Etnologia in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil that was scanned and animated by Zac Selden of the Center for Regional Heritage Research of Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU), as detailed here.  The scanning of these vessels is part of a larger cooperative research project involving SFASU,  the University of Missouri, Texas A&M University, the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, and the Virtual Curation Laboratory

Animation of the Day: Brick Wall from the Fairfield Plantation

by Bernard K. Means, director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory

 

Today’s animation is a section of the  Fairfield Plantation site structure. This site was “ancestral home of the Burwell family in America” and built in 1694 and burned in 1897. Details on this site prepared by the Fairfield Foundation‘s David Brown and Thane Harpole can be found here.  I scanned sections of the foundation of the plantation site on August 25, 2014.

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Animation of the Day: Ninth Vessel from the Museu De Arqueologia E Etnologia

by Bernard K. Means, Director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory

 

Today’s animation is the ninth vessel from the the Museu De Arqueologia E Etnologia in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil that was scanned and animated by Zac Selden of the Center for Regional Heritage Research of Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU), as detailed here.  The scanning of these vessels is part of a larger cooperative research project involving SFASU,  the University of Missouri, Texas A&M University, the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, and the Virtual Curation Laboratory

Animation of the Day: Eighth Vessel from the Museu De Arqueologia E Etnologia

by Bernard K. Means, Director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory

Today’s animation is the eighth vessel from the the Museu De Arqueologia E Etnologia in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil that was scanned and animated by Zac Selden of the Center for Regional Heritage Research of Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU), as detailed here.  The scanning of these vessels is part of a larger cooperative research project involving SFASU,  the University of Missouri, Texas A&M University, the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, and the Virtual Curation Laboratory

Animation of the Day: Seventh Vessel from the Museu De Arqueologia E Etnologia

by Bernard K. Means, Director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory

 

Today’s animation is the seventh vessel from the the Museu De Arqueologia E Etnologia in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil that was scanned and animated by Zac Selden of the Center for Regional Heritage Research of Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU), as detailed here.  The scanning of these vessels is part of a larger cooperative research project involving SFASU,  the University of Missouri, Texas A&M University, the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, and the Virtual Curation Laboratory

Animation of the Day: Fluted Point from Orange County, New York

by Bernard K. Means, Director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory

Today’s animation is a fluted point from Orange County, New York. It was scanned at the New York State Museum (NYSM) in July 2014.  The point was donated to the NYSM by Ray Decker and was recorded by NYSM staff as part of the New York
Paleoindian database project.