Construction Workers Dug Up a Sewer Line—and Found 3,800-Year-Old Tools
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
A construction project to upgrade a sewer conveyance system in Canada led to the discovery of an archaeological site containing ancient wooden tools.
Archaeologists uncovered 3,800-year-old wooden wedges that were likely used to help split logs into planks.
The team also discovered cordage made of plant and wood fibers that could have served a multitude of everyday purposes.
Crews working to upgrade a sewer conveyance system on Vancouver Island in Canada unearthed a rare archaeological 'wet site' featuring 3,800-year-old wooden tools and cordage.
Located on K'ómoks First Nation territory, the find includes wooden wedges likely used to split logs into planks—a common tool in home construction, according to a K'ómoks statement. 'Traditionally, wedges were made from fine-grained woods like yew, spruce, maple, and crabapple, and they were often scorched to increase their hardness,' the statement read. 'The wedge would include a cordage collar or 'grommet,' which helped to prevent the edge of the wood from fraying when hammered.'
The team also located the traditional cordage rope—typically made from plant and wood fibers—that could have been a commonly used tool in everyday life tasks ranging from making clothes or baskets to hunting, fishing, harvesting, or fishing.
The wedges look similar to railroad spikes, and can easily fit in a hand. Cordage was still wrapped and tied on the end, likely to provide cushioning when the wedges were hammered.
Crews worked with the Royal BC Museum to aid in the wet site's conservation, and teams hope to explore both the tools and cordage further to uncover which plant species and manufacturing techniques were used in their creation. Gaining more information about the materials could lead to a better understanding of the purpose of the tools.
A wet site is a waterlogged archaeological location. That may at first feel like a negative quality, but water is known to help preserve organic matter—particularly vegetation and wood. These unique preservation characteristics can lead to rich archaeological finds.
'Organic materials like wood plant fibers, basketry, fishing nets, and leather typically only survive in waterlogged archaeological sites, where a lack of oxygen means that microbes and bacteria can't break them down,' said the K'ómoks First Nation. 'In most archaeological sites, archaeologists find tools and other cultural materials made of more hardy materials like stone, antler, shell, and animal bones. However, in wet sites, they can find tangible and remarkably preserved organic materials as well.'
As work on the sewer conveyance project—which was meant to protect the shorelines and waters throughout the Comox Valley—has continued, project officials have worked with the K'ómoks First Nation to document and recover archaeological materials impacted by the project, which runs through many of the Nation's ancestral settlements and villages. 'These new findings,' the Nation wrote, 'underscores the importance of archaeological analysis in construction projects. Without archaeological monitoring, excavation, and analysis, these fragile materials that teach us about deep-time history can be destroyed, and information can be permanently erased.'
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