Lithic Labs » Stone Tools

Kentucky Hornstone Point

John — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:25:24 +0000

I made this corner-notched point from a piece of Kentucky hornstone. I don’t normally knap a lot of this stuff, mostly due to limited availability. I also don’t know where it ranks on the lithic grade scale relative to other cherts that I’m more familiar with, but it has always been a challenging material for me to work with. In fact, I ruined the first two pieces of hornstone that I ever tried. This piece turned out well but there are still quite a few knapper induced flaws that can be seen on both faces (here’s a little secret: I’m only showing you the nicest of the two sides). Most of the high spots are the result of small step fractures that were compounded after failed attempts to removed them with additional thinning flakes. I have to remember to put my work down and walk away from it for a time when it is beginning to give me troubles. Anyway, this is the first flint knapping I have done in a while and I’m a little out of practice so I’ll have to pump out a few more points before I get my percussion swing back. And since I do the majority of my knapping outside and the weather has become considerably warmer, we can all look forward to more rock work in future posts.

Antler Flaker Update

John — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:38:17 +0000

Okay, I said that I was going to make a projectile point of some kind with my new antler-tipped pressure flaker and then post the results. I made this little arrowhead last week but haven’t gotten around to posting about it until today. This is a small little ‘bird point’ that I made from a waste flake, so it is not huge. I intentionally decided to experiment with something small and if the flake tool worked out well, then I’d try it again on some larger material. And it is a good thing I started this way because it quickly became apparent that the mass of the small piece of antler I used for this tool was inadequate for larger flake removal applications. In addition, I had to cut my piece of antler shorter than I wanted because of a bend that I couldn’t get out. Ideally, I would have liked a longer piece for a more secure haft and added leverage that I couldn’t conveniently achieve with the shorter handle.

When using my new flaker, I was afraid to apply too much pressure on some of the larger platforms for fear of breaking the antler. In the beginning, I had a difficult time getting the antler to grip the platform; the smooth surface of the antler caused it to slip off before removing a flake. But after a little tinkering, I was actually able to make it bite pretty well. In fact, because of the antler is softer than the copper, it did an excellent job of gripping the platform’s edge if applied at just the right angle. This surely contributes to accelerated wear and subsequent resharpening, but when working with antler that is to be expected anyway. I can’t really give a fair or complete assessment of antler since my flaking tool is too small for thorough testing. But I do have some larger pieces of antler lying around and I want to make a new one similar in size and form to an Ishi Stick. The new one I plan to make will be larger and should be capable of removing larger flakes. When it is done, I’ll be sure to update. Until then I’ll go back to using copper and may reshape the antler flaker for use as a notching tool.

Antler Pressure Flaker

John — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:45:24 +0000

I’ve been using a copper tipped pressure flaking tool ever since I started flint knapping. But I’ve always wanted to try using antler. I suspect that most people who flint knap have picked up an antler tine at one time or another and tried chipping with it with mixed results and opinions. For myself, I never enjoyed the feel of an antler tine. It was always uncomfortable – either it was not long enough or its curvature felt awkward in my hand or the fat, blunt tip was just different from what I was used to. I assume that this is probably why 99 percent of the knappers I know use copper.

Like most flint knappers, the occasion often arises when we are either working in the public’s eye or we are showing friends how this was done in the past. When I am observed working with copper, people invariably ask me what was originally used. For this reason, I always have an antler tine in my knapping kit to show and use as an example. I will remove a few flakes from the piece I am working on, then put it away and immediately go back to the copper flaker. But I’ve always wanted to have something more functional that I could be comfortable with, and not just use for the purpose of demonstration. In addition, I use a moose antler billet exclusively during the early reduction stages (with the exception of hammer stones) so using an antler tipped pressure flaker would be more satisfying and would compliment the traditional nature of the rest of my kit. I am also very curious about the use of antler and want to experiment with it and possibly abandon copper all together (sometime in the future perhaps). So, when I came across the article about Making a Reduced Antler Flaker by Steven Edholm in Primitive Technology, I had to make one for myself and try it out. Below is the process I followed as outlined in the article:

First the antler should be soaked for a few days to soften up the material. I used the sister antler tine from last weeks post. After soaking, you can then engrave a channel down the length of both sides of the antler tine using chert flakes from your debitage bucket. These sharp pieces of stone are referred to as burins in the literature and in archeological circles. In the past, I’ve used this technique to split bone and have always gone too shallow. So, this time I wanted to make sure I did a good job, but I probably went deeper than necessary. You just need to reach the pithy core of the antler.

These are the waste flakes I used:

And this is the groove they produced in the antler:

The next step was to split the antler in half by inserting something flat and rigid through the pithy center of the antler to start separating the two halves:

Now that it is split, some additional shaping will be necessary. In my case, the tips were too narrow to support the amount of pressure that will eventually be applied during the flaking process. And the pithy center needs to be reduced to leave the inner half flat for hafting. At this stage, the antler tine is still curvy and wavy and will need to be straightened. The straightening is accomplished simply by binding the antler tightly to a straight stick and allowing it to dry. When the antler is wet, it is flexible enough that it will conform to the shape of the stick. When it is dry, it will be as hard as…well, as hard as antler.

I used some braintan buckskin to make lacing for the hafting process. I just created a flat surface on the edge of a stick for a handle and bound it all together.

Now, I’ve only used this tool a little bit to test it out. It is definitely more comfortable to use than a simple antler tine and it does do the job it is supposed to. I will confess, however, that the tine is too thin for the handle which causes it to move around a bit while I work. I believe this can be remedied by hafting it to a handle that is similar in width as the antler. As it is now, there is space on either side of the antler created by the wider handle. The result is no lateral contact of the leather to the antler.

I plan to do some knapping this weekend and hope to produce a point with it. I’ll post my thoughts on performance and pictures of the point.

Knapped Novaculite Knife

John — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:26:31 +0000

I made a little blade from a piece of novaculite and wasn’t sure exactly what to do with it. I ended up hafting it onto a piece of antler tine that I had laying around. I’ve made similar knives like this in the past as gifts for friends and think of them more as ornamental then functional. Normally I use 5-minute epoxy mixed with a little India ink to fasten the blade to the handle. The ink gives the epoxy a rich dark color to represent the classic pine pitch/charcoal mixture often used for primitive hafting. However, since I wasn’t giving this one away, I decided to actually use pitch for the primary hafting agent to see how it would bind. When I make these as gifts, I use masking tape to cover any part of the stone and handle that I don’t want to get stained with the ink/epoxy mixture. With this knife, I got lazy and didn’t use tape and made a mess on the upper trailing edge of the knife blade. It probably wouldn’t have been so noticeable if I wasn’t using a white stone. I wanted to make sure everything would hold together well, so as an added precaution, I used more pitch than was probably necessary resulting in a sloppy looking haft. Anyway, the novaculite blade itself is a little bulky for the thin antler handle and would have probably been better suited on the end of a spear insert or something similar. The nice thing about using the pine pitch instead of the epoxy is that if I decide I want to put the stone point onto a spear head at a later date, I can always heat up the pitch so the point loosens. I can then remove it and use it elsewhere.

Love-Hate Relationship

John — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:16:22 +0000

As the saying goes, “you have to break a few eggs before you can make an omelet.” The same holds true for flint knapping. Of course, with flint knapping, the whole premise revolves around fracturing a piece of stone in a predictable manner in order to produce an edged tool. However, it usually doesn’t take long in your knapping career before something happens that you weren’t prepared for. For example, the other day I was working a dry piece of keokuk that I had shaped into a nice little biface. It was cool and windy outside, my hands were cold, and I was rushing a bit so I could get back in the house to warm up. Somewhere along the line I thought to myself that I should finish up or take a break because I noticed my billet swings were getting sloppy and I wasn’t taking the time to adequately prepare the striking platforms. But I decided to push through, reasoning to myself that I was almost done with the reduction process. Then, just a few moments later, SNAP – followed by a fairly loud expletive! I had landed a poorly placed swing on too stout of a platform which left me with two pieces of keokuk instead of one. Everyone knows that these kinds of things are a part of flint knapping, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept when it happens. I’d like to think that I learned something from this experience, but truth be told, I tend to put these kinds of lessons behind me rather quickly. So, I’ve decided to write a post about it to help remind myself and any others out there to take your time and to listen to that little voice inside your head when it tells you to take a break. So, with that being said, I expect I’ll be breaking some more pieces this way in the future. I’m just hoping there will be fewer of them.

Normanskill Projectile

John — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:12:18 +0000

I pumped out a little point made from normanskill chert today. I know many flint knappers who favor using materials that occur locally within their state or surrounding geographic area, and I am no exception. Many knappers also enjoy producing historically accurate replicas of point-types known to occur in their area from the archeological record, and this can only be done by using the appropriate type of stone. In general, New York lithic materials are not considered beautiful or easy to work, but for those of us who enjoy knapping them, the end result can leave you with a great sense of satisfaction (or frustration, as is often times the case). For me, using local rock connects me to the previous inhabitants who relied upon the same material to sustain their lives. And it also provides me with a level of assurance knowing that I can utilize the same resource in a similar way if need be. The more common New York cherts include onondaga, normanskill, and esopus and they can be found in different parts of the state.

First Susquehanna

John — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:31:33 +0000

Today I finished up a Susquehanna point that I had originally worked into a little biface a few days ago. The material is keokuk chert and probably wasn’t historically used with this eastern style of point. But once it’s hafted to a spear or atlatl dart, I doubt any critter that might be on the receiving end would know the difference.

I hate notching!

John — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:17:42 +0000

Hemp Hill (top) & Corner Notch

There is nothing worse than putting a lot of time and energy into a point only to mess things up at the very end. I was putting in the last notch when my cone flake took out the ear. I was hoping to make something resembling a Hemp Hill. The finished product is still acceptable and functional but the lack of symmetry obviously reduces some of the aesthetic qualities. The second projectile is a simple corner-notched point. And sticking with the “I hate notching” theme, I had to punch in one of the notches with indirect percussion because I had a hard time driving through the limestone inclusions using pressure alone. I don’t usually like to use indirect, but in this case it seemed to work out OK.

Apologies to LithicCastingLab.com

John — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:32:25 +0000

I just wanted to state for the record that I am a regular visitor to Lithic Casting Lab as it is a wonderful resource for the flint knapper. Most notable in my opinion are the casts they make of authentic stone age artifacts that have been collected the world over. When you are trying to replicate a particular point, nothing beats holding the actual piece in your hands to study and appreciate. And if you can’t obtain that point for examination, the next best thing is to get your hands on an exact replica that has been cast from the genuine article. And that is one thing that Pete Bostrom of Lithic Casting Lab specializes in and does better than anybody else. So, I must confess that I felt a little sleezy after realizing that my domain name closely resembles theirs. In all honesty, I’ve always referred to LCL (in my mind and in conversation) in an abbreviated fashion as Lithic Casting. I had completely forgotten that the Lab-portion of their name had always been included at the end. So, when I was trying to come up with a name to express what my blog would be about (the learning and application of stone-age / primitive technology), the name Lithic Labs felt good and seemed to meet that criteria nicey; Lithic Casting Lab never even entered my mind. Well, I still feel a little weird about it, but it was an honest mistake and what is done, is done. I don’t know Pete personally, but I hope he won’t harbor any ill feelings toward Lithic Labs or myself for using a name that is so similar to theirs. Mea Culpa!

Red Ochre – not just for ceremonial purposes

John — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:36:50 +0000

BoingBoing linked to a National Geographic article regarding the use of red ochre by stone-age humans. Recent research now suggests that they deliberately used it as an additive to improve the adhesive quality of the glues they were making at the time. Considering that some type of adhesive was probably incorporated into the hafting process, this may explain why so many clovis-period projectile points found today show residual staining left by this iron-rich mineral. It was originally thought that the red pigment was rubbed onto the spear heads for spiritual or ceremonial reasons, but these latest findings shed new light upon how it could have be used in other ways. See for yourself:

Stone Age Superglue Found — Hints at Unknown Smarts?