by Ben Jennings
Posted: almost 8 years ago
Updated: almost 8 years ago by Ben Jennings
Visible to: public

Time zone: Europe/London
Reminder: Starting time
Ends: 11:40am (duration is 20 minutes)

I often invited Ed Carriere, Suquamish Master Basketmaker and Elder, to help us recover 700 year old cedar bough pack baskets while excavating the Qwu?gwes wet/waterlogged site, Olympia, Washington. He is the last known Salish Sea weaver still making these cedar clam baskets. While preparing to analyze 2,000 year old Biderbost wet site pack baskets at the U.W. Burke Museum in Seattle, I called Ed and suggested he try to replicate these baskets, fully 100 generations back through his line of teachers. He loved the idea and we got expense funds to do the project through his Tribe’s Suquamish Appendix X grants. We met several times at the U.W. Burke and he recognized two main types of large pack baskets, one open twined and one checker plaited. Kathleen Hawes, a cellular ID expert, determined most of these ancient baskets were made from split cedar root. Ed has now replicated seven of the fine gauge open twine pack baskets, contributing a huge amount to our analysis in the process. Ed guided me through the process of making three of the checker weave examples. Together we will present what we have learned through this experimental archaeology and cultural experiment.

Location

Norcroft Centre, University of Bradford