Eider Duck - finished ivory carving, stained with MX procion dye

Dyeing Ivory Material with Procion MX Dye

I found I could easily paint fingernail polish onto ivory, and remove it later with acetone. This allows you to mask out parts of an ivory surface, leaving other parts un-masked. Then you submerge the item in vinegar overnight. Rinse and soak overnight in procion dye. Next day, add salt. Next day, rinse and remove mask. Voila! A well-stained surface. 

Note, if you do not prep the surface with vinegar, the dye does not adhere as well. It still adheres a bit.

I am hoping to get a nice rich black on the underbelly of the eider duck carving. The test was done on a bit of whale tooth.

Spontaneous Still Life

Keeping my hand in.

Lithic Analysis of Nevada Stone Tools

I wanted to make a single video but the tools kept crashing. Finally found a nice free tool called "CapCut". Here is the video.

I have a number of meta comments:

Measurement Related

1. The measurement could be improved if we accepted a form of "type hysteresis" where a given flake near the boundary between flake Types is pushed into an adjacent Type by virtue of obviously being adjacent to other flakes of that adjacent Type. One slightly long 'Type 1' in the midst of 'Type 2' could be moved into Type 2 this way.

2. The measurement included an estimate of the proportion of the perimeter occupied by tertiary flakes.

3. We gave separate measurements for front and back - allowing mono- facial tools to stand out.

4. Acknowledge that smaller tools cannot have over sized flakes and mostly don't have core, so it is down to 2-ary, 3-ary, and edge work. Similarity to classification of larger tools becomes irrelevant.

Evolution Related

One notes examples of where a crude style is replaced by one with additional details that are 2 octaves below. For example the Oldowan chopper has cortex plus Type 2 flakes. But the Acheulean Axe has cortex plus Type 1 and Type 2 flake. Another example is the Middle Paleolithic flake giving way to the Aterian Point - going from Type 1 to Type 1 plus Type 3. Then the Aurignacian brings in the intermediate Type 2 flakes.

This phenomenon of new details appearing two octaves below previous level might have a mechanism something like this: small errors occur at that level before those errors become deliberate and then get enlarged into an intermediate size range. As per:

The core versus the flake

Early people must have been swinging rocks around and hitting other hard things. This would lead inevitably to a flake being nocked off the core. The rock user might have chosen to go on using the (now broken) rock and, in some cases might prefer it to the original. Not too hard to start removing the flake deliberately. But it is a small flake. Once you learn to remove small flakes deliberately, it is not hard to make larger "small" flakes deliberately because you have learned to think that way.

I want to suppose that, in a different scenario, someone found a use for the flake that got nocked off the core. This would then set up two evolutionary lines of stone tools: core tools and flake tools. Thus the Acheulian hand axe is post-Oldowan but so is the Mousterian flake - and not evolved from the hand axe.

Empanada Fillings

The next post explains a good dough. I have tried pork, chicken, and beef fillings for empanadas. On all of these, you add liquid to the heated mixture so that gravy is just about dripping out from the mixture. You can still wrap the mixture (when cooled) but they are juicy when bitten into.

The beef filling was never great but essentially: add taco seasoning and fried onions to ground beef. Fill dough with beef mixture and large chunks of hard-boiled egg.

The chicken filling was surprisingly good: add a bit of "saison" and "adobo" and paprika to fried onions [and a little garlic], green peppers, and previously cooked chicken. Add some grated cheese, and a little tomato paste. Heat together with chicken broth to achieve the desired moisture content. 

Had some leftover "carnitas" pork - spicy but dry. Chopped (pulled) pork apart, added to fried onion. Since pork was already spicy and garlicy, added small amount of tomato paste, some chopped carrots, peas, potatoes, and raisins. Used chicken broth to add moisture.

Summary: add hard boiled egg to beef; cheese to chicken; and raisins to pork.

Empanada Dough - In the Kitchen with Johnny

From (27) How to Make Empanadas from Scratch - Chicken Empanadas - Empanadas Dough Recipe - YouTube 

A good basic recipe.

For the empanada dough recipe: 2-1/4 cup all purpose flour 8 Tbsp cold butter, cut in small cubes 1 tsp salt 1 large egg 1 Tbsp white distilled vinegar 1/2 cup cold water (more or less )