Flintknapping

Flint tools are one of the key archaeological resources available to us which survive from prehistory - they were manufactured from the Palaeolithic (c2.6 Million BP) right through to the Early Bronze Age (c700 BC), though it was only about 200,000 BC that the prepared core technique was developed (affording much greater control over flaking). Flint was used as a raw material for tool-making because it possesses certain physical properties. It is extremely hard, and although brittle when compared with other rocks, it is very strong. When it fractures the edges which are created are extremely sharp, making it useful as a cutting tool. Because it is homogenous, it fractures in predictable ways and can be shaped according to the requirements of the tool-maker. It is a rock composed of “minutely crystalline silica” (Oakley 1949, 17). It has a “mosaic-like structure of colloidal-silica and crypto-silica in variable proportions” (ibid, 25). Flint is one of a range of rocks which display a tendency for conchoidal fracture. When struck a conical fracture develops away from the point of impact (Lord 1993, 21). As Andrefsky explains, the best rock types for knapping are “those that can be cracked in predictable manner; such stones are brittle, homogenous and isotropic” (1998, 17). Another property is that when tools made from flint and chert break they can be modified and re-used (ibid, 33).

The theoretical aspects of flint-knapping are well documented and empirically sound. A host of researchers have documented their experimental flint knapping research (Keeley 1980 and see Lord 1993; Whittaker 1994; Andrefsky 1998). The principles of working with flint are well published in peer-reviewed academic literature, but actually engaging with a prehistoric technique used for the manufacture of objects is an entirely different domain. Whilst there are many competent modern flint knappers only a minority of archaeologists are able to demonstrate craft expertise in stone tool manufacture. In part this is because experimental archaeology as a methodology has relatively few proponents, and amongst that number some could be described as being theoretically rather than practically aligned. Theoretical knowledge confers no natural ability.

Without instruction from an experienced and knowledgeable knapper the more complex techniques of flaking technology (which are not intuitive) may be beyond the ability of individuals to independently reverse-engineer. Even among those knappers in the UK (who are not archaeologists) who are competent there is a marked tendency for them to produce objects which in plan-view are similar to their prehistoric counterparts, they are often unlike the originals in other respects, notably size (generally larger than originals, particularly in the case of barbed-and-tanged arrowheads), or do not exhibit the same flaking characteristics. Both of these phenomenon reflect the fact that hobby-knappers often work from two-dimensional line-drawings in books and reports, and have not been shown the particular techniques by an expert knapper to properly replicate prehistoric originals (or do not possess the required level of craft skill to be able to reproduce those techniques consistently).

Archaeologists have sometimes turned to hobby-knappers who practise their skills as a hobby to obtain data for their experiments. This strategy is problematic in that those artisans are unlikely to have the depth of knowledge pertaining to prehistoric techno-complexes that a lithics analyst might normally be expected to have accumulated, potentially creating a communications/understanding barrier between the archaeological researcher and the participating craftsperson. The hobby knapper is likely unaware of the extremely diverse range of technical strategies available and used by particular social groups at specific junctions in time and the concomitant range of technologies, which may or may not be relevant to the successful mastery of any particular technique.

There are many people in Britain and Ireland who knap flint as a hobby, but of those only a handful can be described as skilful in a wide range of prehistoric flint-knapping techniques. Bruce Bradley, John Lord and Karl Lee are the most expert flint-knappers currently making flint tools to the same standard as those found in prehistoric contexts (2009).