It's too big.

[Ice Tigre]

skinning a haunch of an antelope that was hit by a car. His tool was a single little flake off an obsidian chunk

Makes me think of a guy I knew a few years back that forgot his knife on a hunting trip... Shot a good sized deer(a doe as I recall) then found he had no knife. He cleaned and field dressed it with the only thing he had; A pair of those small pocket nail clippers. As you say, doesn't matter how small it is, as long as its sharp and you have it on you!

:thumbup:

G.

 

[Ice Tigre]

I have many years working with lithic (stone) technology and I can tell you that there is nothing sharper than a fine obsidian knife, and that includes modern surgical scalpels.

Perhaps, but there is a reason stone tools were supplanted by their metal counterparts.

Not completely supplanted, a lot of modern* surgery is actually still done with obsidian blades for the very reason mentioned; they can't make metal scalpels as sharp.


(Edit; actually I'm not 100% sure about Now; the use of lasers might have finally made that info obsolete.. but I know at least up to and into the first decade of this century, obsidian was still in medical use.)

 

[joeradza]

All I know is that I've cut myself FAR more often with stone than my knives. Probably just more careful.

 

[Jolipapa]

Great story, that shows you were a very practical young man (and probably handsome, otherwise chances are that you'd have been alone ).
I wish I'd have a small knife and a small light the day we got lost with a fellow colleague in the middle of the Buna reserve in Ivory Coast. Dusk fall within seconds and the light would have prevented us to nearly step on the (maybe more afraid than us or was he sated?) medium python wound in the middle of the trail, after having two flat tyres on the car (an R16 saloon). Curiously, we remembered without hesitation the exact way back as we hurried along like very afraid men to meet some workers we'd crossed on the way and spend an unforgettable night with them.
The following day was also memorable when we negociated a pair of tyre with the next town's local (Libanese) garage owner. That time we were glad we had no knife with us...