MICRO-DRILL HEAVEN3

These are a few of the micro-drills recovered from a Lohman Phase village outside Belleville, Il. They were recovered when Larry water screened 275 5-gallon buckets of dirt through window screen. The screen was tied into a bag and sprayed with a hose until the soil was gone. (See thumbnail below)

(Photo LK) See Lehman-Sommers

Even small micro-drill sections (about 800) were recovered with that method. Some of those drills were capable of drilling 1mm. holes.

(see thumbnail below)

(Photo LK)

(see thumbnail below)

Here's some drills from Feature 160, a house.(Photo LK) Feature 160 contained over 5oo of the micro-drills

Micro-drills may have been hafted by cutting cane just below the "knocks", creating a D-shaped cross-section.

(Photo Pete Bostrom) Chert micro-drills could then be inserted into the ends of the cane.

(Photo Pete Bostrom) After the drill was dulled, the drill was removed and turned around and reinserted to produce a new bit. When that end became dull, the bits were resharpened. Larry has found that resharpening the drills while in the cane handle allows the knapper to hold the drills easily.

Another method to haft micro drills is shown here.

Photo LK) The drill is mounted with a compression haft. Larry was asked to make the Kaolin chert drill and Dave Halladay hafted it in the pump drill. With a compression haft, the drill can be hafted and/or removed in about 2 seconds. This was done at Rabbit Stick 2001.

(Photo Pete Bostrom) A by-product of micro-drill production is micro blades which are removed to rejuvinate the core. Larry thinks the blades are important to both shell bead (cutting whorls) and larger shell ( masks, cups, etc.) production. It may be that holes are drilled every so often,

(Photo Pete Bostrom) with micro-drills then, micro-blades are used to "connect the dots" as shown is this photo. The production of micro-drills and blades is essential to shell working in the Mississippian (and others) period.

(Photo Pete Bostrom)\