Two of three Tracy Fan-back side chairs I am making for a customer

 

Thank you to those of you who stopped by my demonstration at the Common Ground Country Fair. It was a pleasure to talk with you all. I think I ended up talking more about woodworking in general than Windsor chair-making. By the end of the day Sunday I had completely lost my voice.

 

Last week I was browsing through the college library looking for something interesting to read. I found a book "Preserved in the Peat" written by Andy M. Jones which describes the  archaeological excavation of a Bronze Age burial on Whitehorse Hill, in Dartmoor. "The dig revealed an unexpected intact burial with with an unparalled range of artifacts. The cremated remains had been placed with in a bearskin pelt and provided with a basketry container.... Within the container were beads of shale, amber, clay and tin, two pairs of turned wooden studs.

 

The wooden studs were radiocarbon dated to 3,709 +/- 33 BP (Before Present Era) No one seems to be able to say Before Christ anymore. This discovery of lathe turned wood is the earliest evidence of wood turning in Bronze Age Britian. Pretty cool and something I think is of interest to the those of us who are wood turners.

 

Thanks for stopping by. STB