Makah codfish spear (or, more accurately, harpoon)
The University of Washington has a superb digital collection online, transcending all kinds of different historical, archaeological and popular culture niches. Searching on “artifact” brings up some 583 images (some of which are links to text etc). These are downloadable and have stable URLs to which one can link. The resolution could be higher, but the pictures are sharp and clean, at least for those ones they have apparently taken themselves, and they don’t plaster watermarks all over them. Good work. The amount of metadata is impressive, and the fact that is is clickable renders this site a fantabulous timewaster of the highest order. To the left, I was just having a discussion with a student about harpooning fish. I am under the impression that harpoons were used on large lingcod – after the lingcod were lured to the surface using a cunning little shuttlecock-shaped rising float. This picture is labelled “Makah codfish spear” though it is self-evidently a harpoon and lanyard. More (vindication) coming from this excellent site as time goes by.
