Survival Skills: Flintknapping
by Kari Carlisle
In graduate school I took a class called “Lithic Technology.” Lithic meaning stone or rock, and technology meaning, well, nothing like we know technology today – TV, computers, cell phones. In the prehistoric Stone Age chipping rocks into tools was their technology, and after taking that class, I can tell you that it’s just as difficult to make a chipped stone tool (i.e. flintknapping) as it is to program a computer. OK, I suppose that’s apples and oranges, but it’s not easy! There is unquestionably an art and a science to flintknapping.
Flintknappers are definitely artists. I firmly believe it takes some innate artistic ability to envision the tool you want to make from a shapeless rock and then create that tool. Flintknappers have a “feel” for their artistic medium, the rock. They know where to work it and where it will fracture. They have the skill and dexterity to hold the rock just the right way to make the flake curve in just the right direction. Like other artists, flintknappers don’t always create a perfect work. Some are the Michelangelos of flintknapping, and some may end up in the Museum of Bad Art (it’s real, look it up). Most are probably in the middle, and I like to think the stone heart I chipped during my class came out pretty good.
Flintknapping is also very much a science. Flintknappers are geologists and physicists. They know what physical properties make a rock conducive to producing an arrowhead, knife, scraper or drill. They know what tools to use to perform a particular function. They know that heat-treating the rock will make it stronger, unless they’re using obsidian. They know terms like “bulb of percussion” and “debitage.”
If you’re neither an artist nor a scientist, don’t despair. You can still learn the skill just well enough to make rudimentary and useful tools from materials lying around on the ground. If you don’t know anyone who can teach you flintknapping in person, the next best thing is to view some of the gazillion YouTube videos available on the subject. I’ve known people who picked up the skill on their own, just by picking up rocks and practicing.
www.readmota.com
In graduate school I took a class called “Lithic Technology.” Lithic meaning stone or rock, and technology meaning, well, nothing like we know technology today – TV, computers, cell phones. In the prehistoric Stone Age chipping rocks into tools was their technology, and after taking that class, I can tell you that it’s just as difficult to make a chipped stone tool (i.e. flintknapping) as it is to program a computer. OK, I suppose that’s apples and oranges, but it’s not easy! There is unquestionably an art and a science to flintknapping.
Flintknappers are definitely artists. I firmly believe it takes some innate artistic ability to envision the tool you want to make from a shapeless rock and then create that tool. Flintknappers have a “feel” for their artistic medium, the rock. They know where to work it and where it will fracture. They have the skill and dexterity to hold the rock just the right way to make the flake curve in just the right direction. Like other artists, flintknappers don’t always create a perfect work. Some are the Michelangelos of flintknapping, and some may end up in the Museum of Bad Art (it’s real, look it up). Most are probably in the middle, and I like to think the stone heart I chipped during my class came out pretty good.
Flintknapping is also very much a science. Flintknappers are geologists and physicists. They know what physical properties make a rock conducive to producing an arrowhead, knife, scraper or drill. They know what tools to use to perform a particular function. They know that heat-treating the rock will make it stronger, unless they’re using obsidian. They know terms like “bulb of percussion” and “debitage.”
If you’re neither an artist nor a scientist, don’t despair. You can still learn the skill just well enough to make rudimentary and useful tools from materials lying around on the ground. If you don’t know anyone who can teach you flintknapping in person, the next best thing is to view some of the gazillion YouTube videos available on the subject. I’ve known people who picked up the skill on their own, just by picking up rocks and practicing.
www.readmota.com
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