So Easy a Caveman can do it??????

All I can say is, it's much easier to make a knife out of steel than from stone. That's from my own experience anyway. While stone tools might look crude at first glance, there's nothing crude about them. Their makers knew exactly what they wanted to accomplish and made many tools to very tight and repeatable specs.

And freshly knapped stone is very sharp! It just doesn't hold an edge for long. Because of that, stone tools were constantly being rejuvinated and recycled. A large biface might start out its life as a core to provide flakes for smaller tools, then become a knife, then a point, and ultimately a graver. Good tool stone is very localized and paleolithic hunters moved all over the landscape. So they either had to carry stone or use what they could find locally. If you're carrying specialized rocks around, you want to make them last as long as possible! :D

Thanks for sharing that Fred, a nice way to start my day.
 
lagarto said:
Fred Rowe,
Thanks for that pic, that's quite a nice collection you've got there. Is the obsidian from Ohio, I didn't realize that it existed there if it is. I'm no expert, but I do work for a crm firm and have found a number of stone and bone tools during the last few months. Just from looking at them I can assure you there was nothing necessiarily instinctual about them. A lot of them took a lot of forethought and design to manufacture. A good friend at work does a lot of lithic reproduction/lithic analysis and he confirms that although it's simple once you learn it, it definately takes a lot of thought. You have to know the fracture characteristics of the material, and some of the basic physics. One of my favorite quotes from my father is "Primitive doesn't mean 'stupid'". Also, just as an aside, I believe scientists now say that we're the only ones that "habitually" make and use tools, due to the chips using sticks. They have also observed chimps banding together to hunt small monkeys using stones. IIRC they are Dark Forest chimps, I don't recall where.


Sorry for the longwinded post.

Lagarto.
Click to expand...

Lagarto,

The large black piece, as with the other pieces pictured, came from the Flint Ridge area of Ohio. Even though it has the look of obsidian it is in fact black flint. Flint Ridge is east of Newark and is in the central part of the state
Flint Ridge was considered a DMZ by all the tribes that harvested flint there. The multi colored flint available there was highly prized by Indians across the country and has been found as far west as California.
They harvested the flint by building large fired atop the flint outcroppings, then pouring water on the heated flint to make it fracture. They would gather the flint and take it to the low hills around Buckeye Lake a few miles
distance from Flint Ridge. There they would work it into, semi blade shapes and pack these back to there village to be worked into the final tools that they needed.
Keep your eyes peeled. There are still amazing finds being made today. Those people were here quiet a long period of time.

I appreciate your post, Fred
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top