You are the most incredible teacher. I've been hunting arrowheads since I was old enough to crawl in the cornfields. I grew up two miles from Graham cave in Mineola Missouri in the late 1950s. You could walk anywhere and pick them up by the bushel basket full. We had natural Salt Springs throughout the area where the deer come and lick the salt. Every time the wind blow the leaves there would be hundreds of points. Nobody cared about them back then. When I was 15 I used to pasture my horse at Dave huddleston's place. His father was dr. Huddleston a surgeon in the Civil War. This house was built in 1866 the year he married when he came back from the war. The walkway up to the house was about 75 ft long and three feet wide concrete inlaid with beautiful spear points atlatl points and arrowheads all the way to the front step. I waited too long to learn this I'm an old man now and dying of cancer. but I have some rocks and I'm chipping at it. it's my passion. Thank you so much for your videos they're incredible
My uncle was a barber, a peanut farmer, a rancher and a master flint knapper in Comanche County Texas. His projectile points were perfect and his bird points were exquisite.
Thanks so much for this very informative video. I'm reading a book about Cro Magnon people, and after watching you, everything said about stone tool production makes so much more sense.
extremely informative! it's god to know you don't need a lot of fancy tools to begin, that's what was keeping me from checking out flintknapping. definitely gonna be checking out your other videos.
Hey brother, really enjoy your videos. Love the in-depth tutorials and how you really dive into the details. Keep it up man your helping me a lot on my technique.
You are a good teacher. I have two quartzite strata exposed on my property. Both are rather thin 4"- 6" tabular deposit. Some of it contains grartz replaced fossils . It has a decent concoidal fracture, but can contain swirls and doulbe-backs; a grain of sorts...
I’m here because I’m writing a book and I need to learn this. Gotta say, you are a wonderful teacher and I’m quite fascinated by this! Also, you actually look like one of my characters in the book. His name is Jari Enberg, and is a Norwegian immigrant, skilled with axes and bows! Haha Thank you for the video!! You helped this girl out so much!
@@0Hades1 I'm not talking dainty cotton gloves you use to attend yon Prince's ball, you know *professional* gloves? Like the metal chain mail ones chefs use? (I am a chef and I've stab myself with knives in the hand A LOT oyster shucking) Or the Kevlar ones?
Valid point! He maybe prefers the feeling of skin contact, as you get more intracate feedback. Just like how I'd sometimes take my garden gloves off to weed a garden. I need a better feeling to get all the micro-weeds. He still missed the opportunity to mention that gloves could be used. Even just standard work gloves would help without needing chainmail.
You can pressure flake with rocks too. Disclaimer: I am a terrible knapper in that I never use the right tool for the job. I do literally everything with a rock. If I switch tools it's usually to another rock. but anyway, Aboriginees of Austrailia would sometimes use ground quartz crystals due to an absence of other materials.
Be ready for blood. Kind of funny. I forget where I learned it but I seem to recall that the edge of a modern day, state-of-the-art, laser honed, surgical scalpel is about 20 microns thick at the edge. Interestingly, the edge of an obsidian flake is about 5 microns thick at the edge. No surprise that unintended cuts will happen while bits 5 times sharper than a scalpel are flying around.
I don't understand why the human hand is so delicate. I've had shards stuck in my fingers so many times and I can only get it out with a tweezer (and it hurts like a bitch!). If we wer e in the paleolitihic with no tweezers how the hell do you get shards out of your skin?
A microscopic comparison of wounds left by a steel scalpel and an obsidian scalpel the steel one leaves a cut looking like a chainsaw wound. The obsidian cut cut smoothly through cells. One doctor reported that if you cut yourself with obsidian you don't feel it, it does so little damage and wounds heal faster. www.cnn.com/2015/04/02/health/surgery-scalpels-obsidian/index.html
@@vedics929 stone-age man's hands and feet were likely so rough and callused from hard use that micro slivers probably didn't happen often. The skin on our modern hands and feet is delicate in comparison because we don't use them for hard work to the same extent they did. Even a gruff blue collar worker's hands are likely "delicate" in comparison to what a hunter-gatherer's hands probably looked like. Take a look at this link; it's about feet, not hands, but it's the same concept: news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/06/harvard-evolutionary-biologist-daniel-lieberman-turns-his-attention-to-walking/
You know, being a blacksmith has its perks. If you don't have a particular tool that you think would be perfect, rather than buy one, you just make it~ Much like your copper nail problem.
Been trying this for a while now but flint is very rare where I live and good flint even more so (especially the black flint) this morning I found two nodules but they were to fractured by the glaciers that brought them here, found a nice small fossil of an urchin though ;-)
yes antlers n a round string rock tips are harder than copper to work. n yes my copper nail turned out to be silver under neath, usually the base of antler is used for large bopper
was outside, found a tiny piece of cherry. first rock that is knappable here, quartzite we have lots. what do u look for when hunting, i have rocks with colours in them. When u want to be a bowyer you have to learn all points of sport. if i could find more cherr n quartzite i’d play more. heat treating imma try with colour rocks.
Excellent work my friend! I have dabbled in flintknapping and am brushing up to get back into it! Your videos help immensely! However I have watched three videos of yours and you have bled in all three lol. So the prepare for blood statement certainly rings true! Keep up the great work!
Love every bit of this video sir I love that you even brought in the use of different ages of tools to show us examples. My only complaint is gloves 😂 I’m a mechanic/technician by trade and I’m not tryna sound like a baby but take care of your hands and protect them, they’re your most important tools you have minus your brain and I’d hate for you to get a huge gash or something. Still though love the video and can’t wait to show my nephew 🤟🏼
Hope you read and can answer this. there's some things I can't do in this process because I don't have the strength in my hand or wrist. Also I shake, that doesn't help. A question: I have a thick place that needs to be thinned to be of any use at all.. I cannot seem to drive a flake halfway across the piece. What am I doing wrong if my flakes are too small? I tried porcelain floor tile obsidian, some types of glass and wasted a good bit of material. I used small hammer stones, copper boppers, and a couple of other tools. Please help somebody!
I gotcha, buddy. If you want to reduce big pieces, that's a luxury nowadays. If you want to make arrowheads, all you need is pressure flskong. But with your wrist problems, you will need a jig. There are plans online. My buddy does the thinnest pieces I've ever seen, and i but points from him, and he's over 70 years old and uses a jig.
Good question. Copper is soft and "grabs" the stone edges better than steel, and more like antler or bone would. But antler and bone wear down quicker than copper. And I use steel horseshoe nails for fine work. A good flintknapper could use a variety of materials.
I found some flint in my neighborhood woods. I'm looking to make tips for my atlatl darts without spending any money on tools that I'm only gonna use once. I want to make spearheads using materials I can find in the woods.
Copper being more advanced? I guess you meant that copper came after antler or hammer stone. Copper has one disposition. It is harder than antler. Hammer stones offer a much greater variety of hardnesses & therefore is actually (depending on the stone type you use), more suitable in their application when applied to the many variations different stone types being knapped from a core stone into a biface. The Archeological record indicates that copper was probably in a continued use 6,000 yrs ago. Archeologists have found copper pressure flakers in New York State (North America) in various caves where they were carbon dated. So far there have been no copper billets/hammers found. pre-Neolithic copper was highly prized for ornimants. However, large copper natural formations may have existed & due to oxidation may have destroyed. Copper hammers & pressure flakers leave a different signature on the flake removal junctures. Currently we just don't have enough information. However, most likely a pre-Neolithic approach is indicated in the use of organic tool use in Flint Knapping. Bone, stone,antler, horn, hoof, ivory, wood etc.I feel the use of organic traditional tools will teach a person so much more about how flintknapping was actually done for most of our stone tool making as a species.
I have the theory that one of the very first uses of copper among neolithic people might have been as reinforcement for their knapping tools: be it a cap for the antler base hammer or a thin tip to create very very small cerrations you cannot get with antler tips.
Antler can be found in many different grades of hardness. Burnishing an antler can harden it. Grind up fire burnt sand into a powder & when burnishing your antler against wood put your sand between the two. You will find that it becomes impregnated in the pores of the antler. This can also be applied to bone, ivory & wood, hoof, horn etc. Of course this requires more applications of this process to obtain the hardness levels of copper.
Also, I would like to add that with certain stone an antler will grab the edge better & remove flakes with more force. Alot depends on the stone you are knapping and the amount of abraiding applied to the biface platform. Sometimes, when your pressure flaker is too hard or to soft you will get different results. There are factors that involve both the stone you are knapping & the tool you choose to use for flake removal. Vincent James Ajello ( Lithic Technologist/researcher 30yrs).
Disappointed there’s no advisory about wearing safety goggles. You shouldn’t smash rock without protection. And also, how about gloves. Jesus, Dude! You think everyone has healthcare?
If copper is used it leaves little copper specks and residues. If antler is used, that would be different. The key would be the location found, soil stuck to the arrowhead, and whether the material and style matches others known from the area.
You keep saying primitive people, weren’t we all primitive at some point. Or were u referring to oh I get it primitive tools n methods vs comptemporary tools n methods.
You are the most incredible teacher. I've been hunting arrowheads since I was old enough to crawl in the cornfields. I grew up two miles from Graham cave in Mineola Missouri in the late 1950s. You could walk anywhere and pick them up by the bushel basket full. We had natural Salt Springs throughout the area where the deer come and lick the salt. Every time the wind blow the leaves there would be hundreds of points. Nobody cared about them back then. When I was 15 I used to pasture my horse at Dave huddleston's place. His father was dr. Huddleston a surgeon in the Civil War. This house was built in 1866 the year he married when he came back from the war. The walkway up to the house was about 75 ft long and three feet wide concrete inlaid with beautiful spear points atlatl points and arrowheads all the way to the front step. I waited too long to learn this I'm an old man now and dying of cancer. but I have some rocks and I'm chipping at it. it's my passion. Thank you so much for your videos they're incredible
Ok
A fellow Missourian 😎God bless you brother
Thanks for sharing. That's what i dream of when i walk.
Hats off to you. Fellow missourian, thank you for your story
I hope the remainder of your life is long and joyful
My uncle was a barber, a peanut farmer, a rancher and a master flint knapper in Comanche County Texas. His projectile points were perfect and his bird points were exquisite.
Thanks so much for this very informative video. I'm reading a book about Cro Magnon people, and after watching you, everything said about stone tool production makes so much more sense.
extremely informative! it's god to know you don't need a lot of fancy tools to begin, that's what was keeping me from checking out flintknapping. definitely gonna be checking out your other videos.
Hey brother, really enjoy your videos. Love the in-depth tutorials and how you really dive into the details. Keep it up man your helping me a lot on my technique.
"you're"
Could you please do a video on what to do when you run into a 90% angle in depth?
You are a good teacher. I have two quartzite strata exposed on my property. Both are rather thin 4"- 6" tabular deposit. Some of it contains grartz replaced fossils . It has a decent concoidal fracture, but can contain swirls and doulbe-backs; a grain of sorts...
I’m here because I’m writing a book and I need to learn this. Gotta say, you are a wonderful teacher and I’m quite fascinated by this! Also, you actually look like one of my characters in the book. His name is Jari Enberg, and is a Norwegian immigrant, skilled with axes and bows! Haha
Thank you for the video!! You helped this girl out so much!
Great short tutorial. We'll explained and to the point. 👍
"be prepared for blood" Or just wear a glove, simple solutions are often the best solutions.
Lmao, they are used to make arrow heads and spear heads, you really think they won’t go through gloves😂
@@0Hades1 I'm not talking dainty cotton gloves you use to attend yon Prince's ball, you know *professional* gloves? Like the metal chain mail ones chefs use? (I am a chef and I've stab myself with knives in the hand A LOT oyster shucking) Or the Kevlar ones?
Valid point! He maybe prefers the feeling of skin contact, as you get more intracate feedback. Just like how I'd sometimes take my garden gloves off to weed a garden. I need a better feeling to get all the micro-weeds.
He still missed the opportunity to mention that gloves could be used. Even just standard work gloves would help without needing chainmail.
you loose the sensitivity to touch...
like when you wear a comdom
Dont be a bitch.
You can pressure flake with rocks too.
Disclaimer: I am a terrible knapper in that I never use the right tool for the job. I do literally everything with a rock. If I switch tools it's usually to another rock. but anyway, Aboriginees of Austrailia would sometimes use ground quartz crystals due to an absence of other materials.
Thank you so much for this! 5 minutes and everything i wanted to know to start knapping!
I did some in high-school it earned me a lot of extra credit in my anthropology class
Be ready for blood. Kind of funny. I forget where I learned it but I seem to recall that the edge of a modern day, state-of-the-art, laser honed, surgical scalpel is about 20 microns thick at the edge. Interestingly, the edge of an obsidian flake is about 5 microns thick at the edge. No surprise that unintended cuts will happen while bits 5 times sharper than a scalpel are flying around.
I don't understand why the human hand is so delicate. I've had shards stuck in my fingers so many times and I can only get it out with a tweezer (and it hurts like a bitch!). If we wer e in the paleolitihic with no tweezers how the hell do you get shards out of your skin?
A microscopic comparison of wounds left by a steel scalpel and an obsidian scalpel the steel one leaves a cut looking like a chainsaw wound. The obsidian cut cut smoothly through cells. One doctor reported that if you cut yourself with obsidian you don't feel it, it does so little damage and wounds heal faster. www.cnn.com/2015/04/02/health/surgery-scalpels-obsidian/index.html
@@vedics929 stone-age man's hands and feet were likely so rough and callused from hard use that micro slivers probably didn't happen often. The skin on our modern hands and feet is delicate in comparison because we don't use them for hard work to the same extent they did. Even a gruff blue collar worker's hands are likely "delicate" in comparison to what a hunter-gatherer's hands probably looked like.
Take a look at this link; it's about feet, not hands, but it's the same concept: news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/06/harvard-evolutionary-biologist-daniel-lieberman-turns-his-attention-to-walking/
Very informative thank you for teaching me.
Your videos are very informative and helpful. Greatly appreciate your insights as i learn flint knapping.
Fantastisch!
Great job, and a very obvious informative explanations/ demonstrations!
Danke shoen!
You know, being a blacksmith has its perks. If you don't have a particular tool that you think would be perfect, rather than buy one, you just make it~
Much like your copper nail problem.
Here’s my discord server for Flint napping and survival stuff discord.gg/ApnnC2W
Been trying this for a while now but flint is very rare where I live and good flint even more so (especially the black flint) this morning I found two nodules but they were to fractured by the glaciers that brought them here, found a nice small fossil of an urchin though ;-)
yes antlers n a round string rock
tips are harder than copper to work. n yes my copper nail turned out to be silver under neath, usually the base of antler is used for large bopper
was outside, found a tiny piece of cherry. first rock that is knappable here, quartzite we have lots.
what do u look for when hunting, i have rocks with colours in them. When u want to be a bowyer you have to learn all points of sport.
if i could find more cherr n quartzite i’d play more. heat treating imma try with colour rocks.
Excellent work my friend! I have dabbled in flintknapping and am brushing up to get back into it! Your videos help immensely! However I have watched three videos of yours and you have bled in all three lol. So the prepare for blood statement certainly rings true! Keep up the great work!
What an artform. I've always wondered but never knew how these were made. I think I'm going to try to make one. Nice video.
Other qualities of this video aside... that is an epic beard, envy engaged
Enjoy your videos. Well done, keep on knapping!
Awesome video!! I'm now ready to try it. Thanks!
That was a good bit of stone.
Great, simple how to, excellent!!
Very informative!
Can you wear leather gloves for protection or not?
excellent video, i enjoyed watching this a lot. :-) thank you for making the video
Very instructive, thank you!
Thanks for posting
Great video😎👍
Love every bit of this video sir I love that you even brought in the use of different ages of tools to show us examples. My only complaint is gloves 😂 I’m a mechanic/technician by trade and I’m not tryna sound like a baby but take care of your hands and protect them, they’re your most important tools you have minus your brain and I’d hate for you to get a huge gash or something. Still though love the video and can’t wait to show my nephew 🤟🏼
Eye pro. Eye injury scares me.
This was really helpful, thanks
Thanks, I like your videos.
Very cool where do you get materials online? What If you want certain colors of obsidian
Hope you read and can answer this. there's some things I can't do in this process because I don't have the strength in my hand or wrist. Also I shake, that doesn't help. A question: I have a thick place that needs to be thinned to be of any use at all.. I cannot seem to drive a flake halfway across the piece. What am I doing wrong if my flakes are too small? I tried porcelain floor tile obsidian, some types of glass and wasted a good bit of material. I used small hammer stones, copper boppers, and a couple of other tools. Please help somebody!
I gotcha, buddy. If you want to reduce big pieces, that's a luxury nowadays. If you want to make arrowheads, all you need is pressure flskong. But with your wrist problems, you will need a jig. There are plans online. My buddy does the thinnest pieces I've ever seen, and i but points from him, and he's over 70 years old and uses a jig.
I’m curious, why are all the flintknapping tools copper? Would there be anything wrong with using a steel nail? Or a steel bopper?
Good question. Copper is soft and "grabs" the stone edges better than steel, and more like antler or bone would. But antler and bone wear down quicker than copper. And I use steel horseshoe nails for fine work. A good flintknapper could use a variety of materials.
Thanks for sharing!
I found some flint in my neighborhood woods. I'm looking to make tips for my atlatl darts without spending any money on tools that I'm only gonna use once. I want to make spearheads using materials I can find in the woods.
Do you know what place i can get natural deer or elk antlers
Clicked for the beard, stayed for the knowledge.
Thank you sir 👍
very cool!
This is great! My friends go arrowhead looking all the time and im gonna make some and toss em out front to mess with em. Haha! Thanks!
Wait do you have to actually heat treat the Flint before you knap
Where do you get the flint for this?
Zachary L neolithics.com
Tremendous
Thx for the video.
Awesome great show I tried once when I was about 14-15 and ran out of Stone and my tool I don’t know
A steel nail is iron age?
I want to learn knapping flints for a flintlock. I have a big rock of American black flint
Where do you purchase your material for knapping?
Thank you good video
Where did you get the flint to do this?
Any suggestions on how to do this without arms or legs..
Wtf kind of question is that? You must be the guy in the picture...
You do an a mixing job with your videos. I have learned so much from you. Thank you so much. How can I send you money or shop at your store?
Thanks dude!
Awesome video. Please recommend safety glasses.
God, I wish could grow a beard like that!
Copper being more advanced? I guess you meant that copper came after antler or hammer stone. Copper has one disposition. It is harder than antler. Hammer stones offer a much greater variety of hardnesses & therefore is actually (depending on the stone type you use), more suitable in their application when applied to the many variations different stone types being knapped from a core stone into a biface. The Archeological record indicates that copper was probably in a continued use 6,000 yrs ago. Archeologists have found copper pressure flakers in New York State (North America) in various caves where they were carbon dated. So far there have been no copper billets/hammers found. pre-Neolithic copper was highly prized for ornimants. However, large copper natural formations may have existed & due to oxidation may have destroyed. Copper hammers & pressure flakers leave a different signature on the flake removal junctures. Currently we just don't have enough information. However, most likely a pre-Neolithic approach is indicated in the use of organic tool use in Flint Knapping. Bone, stone,antler, horn, hoof, ivory, wood etc.I feel the use of organic traditional tools will teach a person so much more about how flintknapping was actually done for most of our stone tool making as a species.
I have the theory that one of the very first uses of copper among neolithic people might have been as reinforcement for their knapping tools: be it a cap for the antler base hammer or a thin tip to create very very small cerrations you cannot get with antler tips.
Antler can be found in many different grades of hardness. Burnishing an antler can harden it. Grind up fire burnt sand into a powder & when burnishing your antler against wood put your sand between the two. You will find that it becomes impregnated in the pores of the antler. This can also be applied to bone, ivory & wood, hoof, horn etc. Of course this requires more applications of this process to obtain the hardness levels of copper.
Also, I would like to add that with certain stone an antler will grab the edge better & remove flakes with more force. Alot depends on the stone you are knapping and the amount of abraiding applied to the biface platform. Sometimes, when your pressure flaker is too hard or to soft you will get different results. There are factors that involve both the stone you are knapping & the tool you choose to use for flake removal. Vincent James Ajello ( Lithic Technologist/researcher 30yrs).
Very interesting. What is a good source for the large flint stone you had?
Sharon Will online. Try neolithics.com
can we use wood instead of antler? there is no antler in my place.
I'm sure you've already figured this out but yeah definitely 👍🏻
good info!
2:12 "you can cut yourself, so be prepared for blood." Never heard of gloves?
Disappointed there’s no advisory about wearing safety goggles. You shouldn’t smash rock without protection. And also, how about gloves. Jesus, Dude! You think everyone has healthcare?
How could someone tell the difference between a 5 minute old arrowhead as opposed to a 5000 year old arrowhead?
If copper is used it leaves little copper specks and residues. If antler is used, that would be different. The key would be the location found, soil stuck to the arrowhead, and whether the material and style matches others known from the area.
@@gregpryorhomestead so, basically, there’s no way to tell, as long as you use the right tools and materials
@@BlockchainToTheFace yes. People get scammed all the time buying them online, thinking they're authentic and rare (expensive)
Hinges look fresh on new ones. Usually a lot sharper than anything thas has been in the dirt for thousands of years also.
Just wanted to see if anyone laughed at "copper bopper"
he's gonna lose all his ragu if he keeps this up
read 4" to 6" not ft.
Haaa lol be prepared for blood I got a blood blister
This guy need to knap his beard as well
Certainly!
You keep saying primitive people, weren’t we all primitive at some point. Or were u referring to oh I get it primitive tools n methods vs comptemporary tools n methods.
Aw, shucks. I wanted to hear how it was done, but your acoustics are bad. ~ 0:30 Oh, GOOD! This is much better.