Over 95 percent of man's total cultural history involves the making of stone tools.
The very first stone tools were nothing more than tools of opportunity.
This is where a sharp stone was given a couple of whacks,
and the sharp edge was applied. These were used for rubbing or digging as hand axes.
This went on for almost a million years. It wasn't until later on that prehistoric people
started making stone tools out of the smaller fragments or the flakes.
Today we're going to discuss stone tools, their manufacture, and cores,
or the things that the flakes come from, and some percussion and some plaking techniques.
I'm using volcanic glass. This is really a semi-cooled liquid. If we were to go to
another planet and put this on the planet surface that had a little bit more gravity
and came back, say, in a couple hundred years, it would be just a puddle. As glass,
it's constantly flowing. In old window paints, the glass is always thicker at the bottom than
at the top because for years it's been flowing downwards. As a semi-cooled liquid,
volcanic glass also has a rind on it. This rind has a property where it's actually like
rusting. It's hydrating. Archaeologists can measure this rind by measuring it in
sections in microns and then computing how thick it is and actually telling the age of
the when the artifact was made. Also, archaeologists are able to tell from which sources of sitting
was derived. Trace elements in the obsidian, rarers, actually fingerprint the flow from
which obsidians come from. In the Middle East, obsidian has been traced from the Mediterranean
into Asia. Here in the United States, the Rebels trace obsidian coming from Yellowstone
to approximately St. Louis. Obsidian and volcanic glass isn't all that the ancient peoples made
tools from, such as agate. The crystals are so small, they are microscopic. These were
used also for stone tools. Tools made from obsidian are the sharpest tools known in that.
They rival even surgical steel. I'll try to take a few flakes off this. First of all,
the cortex has to be removed. The outside cortex is no different. The idea behind making
flakes is that we're controlling a cone of force. Just like when a BB hits a pane of glass
and there's a cone made, this is the same idea of making stone tools. This is called
a conchoidal fracture or a shell-like fracture. By controlling this cone, we're able to make
flakes and other stone tools. Preparing the striking platform, following an edge, and
drawing off a flake. Like I said, this is the sharpest substance stone of man. I'll
take a couple of blades here. A blade is a flake that's tried twice as long as it is
wide. I must be wearing a leather chap here. The person who taught me how to make stone
tools was a graduate student. He was demonstrating how to make stone tools. He didn't have a
leather chap here. He struck the core and drew a six-inch flake right through the calf
of his leg, right through his thigh. I had to take him to the hospital. He never did
make stone tools after that. With the right flake here, I'll show you how sharp it is.
I'll sit down when I've been giving these demonstrations because my arm is all shaved
up here. During this demonstration, you might see several cuts on my hands, something that
can't be avoided. The edge on this flake is only 10 molecules thick. You can't stand
a lot of wear and tear, but it's disposable. You can easily make more flakes. Some of the
ancient Mayans and Aztecs made flakes that were long surgical scaffolds. Here, they'd
be able to use these for minor surgeries and for human sacrifice. They're also very, very
sharp. They're also able to easily cut leather and skins. Later, they started making tools
off of the flakes from the cores. Archaeological sites that you might find, you can tell the
different activities that were going on by the different types of flakes. The flakes
that come off the core first are primary flakes. They usually show some of its cortex on the
outside of the flake. Make several flakes and then choose the ones that best will suit
the tool we need. These small flakes are razor sharp.
Different tribes, different people have several prohibitions that the Flintnapper or maker
of stone tools would observe. Some were not speaking. They find it hard to talk and make
a stone tool at the same time. There's another good flake. This core itself now could be
used as a tool with that sharp edge on this side and the back side here. Take a couple
of flakes. This method with the hammer stone is called a direct percussion method. Hammer
stones were something special that the craftsmen kept. They weren't discarded. You don't usually
find them in quarries, but you find them after they've been worn out in trash piles and things
like that. Hammer stone can last half a lifetime. Stone tools were something that the craftsmen
cherished. In one place we found a prehistoric tool maker's kit which consisted of a bag of
all of the hammer stones, the notchers, the flakers, pieces of sinew, all bound up in
one bag which was the total tool kit for a prehistoric Flintnapper. The other method
I'll show you is a percussion with a baton. I always like to rough up the edges here so
I don't get cut. It's a percussion method where the flakes are smaller and more controlled.
The flakes are coming on the other neat side here. Over the years of doing this I've built
a callus here. What I'm doing now is thinning this large flake, taking off some bigger pieces
from it. Thinning it so that the pieces I take from it will make it flatter. Preparing
the sparky platform so the tool will not slip off when I strike it. Drawing round and round
out in a pattern. Taking off the edges and making it flatter.
Early North American Indians would use obsidians and shirts. Later, after contact in historic
times when actual bottle glass was available, some arrowheads were made out of this. I always
hear the old story of the telegraph lines being down between here and Fort Defiance.
A lot of times the Indians were throwing rocks at the insulators to get the bottle glass
and making arrowheads out of it. In recent historic times the Aborigines in Australia
were still making stone tools and the government had a hard time keeping the insulators up
in the outback. The Aborigines would take the rocks and throw them at the insulators.
The government later solved the problem by dumping loads of bottle glass at the bottom
of the power poles. Making it thinner, removing the flakes, preparing the etch.
Taking the flakes off doesn't demand a lot of force or a lot of strength, but just the
precise angle of strike. The prehistoric peoples did not carry around the big chunks of obsidian.
These small little preforms take it out to about this size right here and then take these
back and carry these long distances. That way if this rock had any impurities or other
unknown cracks, the flint maker, flint knapper, would be able to discover this before hauling
the whole rock back to camp. Some places here in Oregon you find caches of thousands of
these flakes that have been roughly shaped and thinned. Always want to take one last
look at the flint. A little bit more thinning here.
From here we can go to another method of flint knapping called pressure flaking. Pressure
flaking was usually done with antlers. Deer antler is the preferred. It's denser than
elk or antelope. The idea is to still control that cone of force, but instead of striking
it by applying pressure to the edge and going down. This helps prepare the platforms. The
idea is to press down and in at the same time, taking flakes off the bottom of the piece.
Small little flakes being taken off at the bottom. These small little flakes, if you
find them in an archaeological site, are usually indicators of pressure flaking. There's been
a recent revival in making stone tools. Around the turn of the century it was a lost art.
Much of our information about stone tool manufacture comes from observing one of the last Iaqui
Indians, Ishi. Ishi was in the Chapperelle with his family when around the turn of the
century a group of government servitors came through and they found what they thought was
this abandoned campsite and his family were out foraging. They took some souvenirs, which
is Ishi's tool kit, baskets, practically all that the family owned. They came back and
saw that all of their tools and baskets had been stolen. Being late in the year, most
of the family just deserved themselves to die. Ishi wandered down out of the Chapperelle
to a corral and leaned up against a fence post and was prepared to die. Rancher found
Ishi, contacted Dr. Al Krober and Krober studied the way that Ishi made arrowheads and other
stone tools and we still, from those experiments, much of our knowledge about stone tool manufacture
came to be known. It was once thought that stone tools were made by heating up rocks
and dripping cold water on them. What is happening is that some of the cherts and flints chip
better after they've been heated and annealed. The Indians would place the nodules and flakes
under a fire for a few days and anneal them in the warm sands underneath the fire, then
take them back out and they'd chip easier. When the colonists saw this, they thought
that they were dripping cold water on hot rocks, but just like adding cold water to
hot iron, most of the time it results in an explosion of the piece. These same types of
tools, these antler tools, we also find in archaeological sites of the same wear. Rather
than have a point on the antler, it's desirable to have it flattened or truncated. Some of
the flakes here are starting to go halfway across on the next pass, so they go all the
way across. At that point, part of the problem is having the flakes go clear across the face
of the piece to the other side and taking off the offset edge. The recent revival of
stone-tube manufacture has put some added discoveries because it's so sharp. Obsidian
produces very little trauma on the edge, produces very little trauma in operations. Several
modern-day flint knackers have undergone bypass surgery or eye surgery, and the trauma resulting
has been very minimal. I once cut myself from here on my thumb up to my wrist by reaching
down and getting a piece of obsidian, and I was able to, normally I'd get stitches with
a piece of masking tape over it and feel in about two days. Take one more line of flakes
off the bottom edge here. And here are the flakes come all the way across.
All the way across the piece. And the notches are made with a real flattened atler, a piece
of rib pressed against the side of the artifact. And from here, the edges were usually dolled
before mounting with a piece of tin. In summary, most of the stone tools were core tools or
large flake tools. Later, pressure methods were able to make smaller artifacts, artifacts
that would, could then be placed that would hold an edge longer. I've been doing this
for around 15 years. You can learn the principles in a few hours. After that, all it is, all
it is then is practice.
Thanks for joining us.
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