1855 Painting - Native American Flintknapping Scene

[BenjaminE]

I have been searching for this work of art since 2010. The scene was painted near the Rocky Mountains along the Pony Express Trail. It shows indians making stone tools. As far as I know, this scene was never actually published.

Grim Reaper, I thought that you might like seeing this early flintknapping painting. I would have some one post it on (deleted by mod) All the evidence points to sophisticated forms of indirect percussion, in the Americas, that were not understood by modern knappers, and researchers over in Europe. You own some of the tools, yourself. Here is one more piece of evidence.

By the way, this flaking tool had a shape that I do not think was so common. It was cut from a round marine mammal bone, or round piece of ivory. The tool had a round quarter section, and two flat sides that must have formed an acute angle. My guess is that the tool was cut flat on the ends, and they were using the acute corner on the cut end, to do the flaking. If so, then that is not a common tool type that I am familiar with, though I have seen similar punch tools with cut ends. There were marine mammal bone/ivory flakers found on Channel Island, about the same length. Also, the six to seven inch length would allow for a strong blow to the tool. I believe that the shorter antler drifts known from the east, from the advent of the archaic era right into the historic era, were used in a different manner of indirect percussion, not like what is seen here.

Also, the painting shows the spalling of nodules, with a stone maul, prior to the manufacture of the stone tools. Hammerstone spalling should have resulted in preforms with ridges on them. If so, then the indirect percussion process shown could have been used to remove ridges from the spalls, prior to pressure flaking. Because the punch tool was recorded as having significant mass it could have been struck fairly hard, with less movement - something not true of smaller tools. The question in my mind pertains to the type of stone being worked. Was it obsidian? Obsidian is fairly fragile. And, that could account for this process being carried out right on the hand, probably with a pad.

It took eight years of research to finally track down this painting. I hope you enjoy it!

 

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[jmaschal]

That’s really cool thanks for sharing!

 

[joshuaream]

Ben, dragging whatever issues you had with another forum to this forum seems messy.

George Catlin's paintings are a wealth of historical knowledge.

 

[ToddsPoint]

The second to the last pic looks to me like they are notching a point with indirect percussion.

The last pic looks like the man is doing bipolar reduction. An anvil stone on the bottom, a stick to hold the flint nodule, and a hammerstone to smash to nodule to bits. This method was used to produce useable flakes from a small tough nodule of flint. Obsidian is easy to flake and it would have been unnecessary to reduce it with bipolar. Gary

 

[Mackaydon]

One title to this painting is : Making Flint Arrowheads--Apache

Source: https://www.slideshare.net/dianecurtis/george-catlins-art
Don.......

 

[uniface]

The last pic looks like the man is doing bipolar reduction. An anvil stone on the bottom, a stick to hold the flint nodule, and a hammerstone to smash to nodule to bits. This method was used to produce useable flakes from a small tough nodule of flint. Obsidian is easy to flake and it would have been unnecessary to reduce it with bipolar.

1) Then why was he doing it ? The painting records a fact.

2) FWIW, I don't see anything wrong with using this forum to set the record straight. Especially since he's been permanently silenced at the original site.

 

[BenjaminE]

1) Then why was he doing it ? The painting records a fact.

2) FWIW, I don't see anything wrong with using this forum to set the record straight. Especially since he's been permanently silenced at the original site.

Bill, I do not think that everyone realizes this, but one of the earliest firsthand flintknapping accounts, from the Americas, involved the bipolar reduction of obsidian, prior to arrowhead creation.

Here is the actual account from 1860:

"The Shasta Indian seated himself on the floor, and placing the stone anvil, which was of compact talcose slate, upon his thigh, with one blow of his agate chisel he separated the obsidian pebble into two parts; then giving another blow to the fractured side, he split off a slab a fourth of an inch in thickness. Holding the piece against the anvil with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, he commenced a series of continuous blows, every one of which chipped off fragments of the brittle substance. It gradually acquired shape. After finishing the base of the arrow-head, the whole being only a little over a inch in length, he began striking gentler blows, every one of which, I expected, would break into pieces. Yet such was his adroit application, his skill and dexterity, that in little over an hour he produced a perfect obsidian arrow-head. I then requested him to carve me one from the remains of a broken bottle, which, after two failures, he succeeded in doing. He gave me, as a reason for his ill success, he did not understand the grain of the glass. No sculptor ever handled a chisel with greater precision, or more carefully measured the weight and effect of every blow, than this ingenious Indian; for even among them arrow making is a distinct trade or profession, which many attempt, but in which few attain excellence. He understood the capacity of the mate-rial he wrought, and before striking the first blow, by surveying the pebble, he could judge of its availability as well as the sculptor judges of the perfectness of a block of Parian. In a moment, all that I had read upon this subject, Written by learned and speculative antiquarians, of the hardening of copper for the working of flint axes, spears, chisels, and arrow-heads, vanished before the simplest mechanical process. I felt that the world had been better served, had they driven the pen less and the plow more !" (American Ethnological Society,)

Actually, if the bipolar process was used to create slabs, then it basically changes everything that was thought about this account, when it was supposedly "debunked" by modern flintknappers. The edge of a slab from a nodule would have a sort of flat rind - not a sharp edge. The flaking tool was cut from a round column of possible ivory. And, it had a quarter round edge, and two flat sides, that resulted in a steep angle along the edge.

So, if they had actually been making slabs, and not spalls, and this was obsidian, and not flint, then the entire flaking process would have produced quite a different effect. In essence, they would have been striking into the edge of a smooth rind. And, the blow would have generated a sort of gouge, followed by a flake, in the thick edge.

Also, the tool may have had square cut ends, rather than pointy ends. It is certain that this appears in the account of Consolulu, from 1869, also from California:

1869 - "Consolulu brought a piece of obsidian, and a fragment of a deer horn split from a prong lengthwise, about four inches in length and half an inch in diameter, and ground off squarely at the ends this left each end a semi-circle, besides two deer prongs with the points ground down into the shape of a square sharp-pointed file, one of these being much smaller than the other. Holding the piece of obsidian in the hollow of the left hand, he placed between the first and second fingers of the same hand, the split piece of deer horn first described, the straight edge of the split deer horn resting against about one-fourth of an inch of the edge of the obsidian this being about the thickness of the flake he desired to split off ; then with a small stone he with his right hand struck the other end of the split deer horn a sharp blow. A perfect flake was obtained, showing the conchoidal fracture peculiar to obsidian. The thickness of the flake to be split off depends upon the nearness or distance from the edge of the obsidian on which the straight edge of the split deer horn is held at the time the blow is struck." (American Naturalist, B.B. Redding).

 

[BenjaminE]

The second to the last pic looks to me like they are notching a point with indirect percussion.

The last pic looks like the man is doing bipolar reduction. An anvil stone on the bottom, a stick to hold the flint nodule, and a hammerstone to smash to nodule to bits. This method was used to produce useable flakes from a small tough nodule of flint. Obsidian is easy to flake and it would have been unnecessary to reduce it with bipolar. Gary

I can see why one might think that this was notching, from the painting. Here is the associated passage for further clarification:

"Like most of the tribes west of and in the Rocky Mountains, they manufacture the blades of their spears and points for their arrows of flints, and also of obsidian, which is scattered over those volcanic regions west of the mountains; and, like the other tribes, they guard as a profound secret the mode by which the flints and obsidian are broken into the shapes they require.

"Every tribe has its factory, in which these arrow-heads are made, and in those, only certain adepts are able or allowed to make them, for the use of the tribe. Erratic boulders of flint are collected (and sometimes brought an immense distance), and broken with a sort of sledge-hammer, made of a rounded pebble of horn-stone, set in a twisted withe, holding the stone, and forming a handle."

"The flint, at the indiscriminate blows of the sledge, is broken into a hundred pieces, and such flakes selected as, from the angles of their fracture and thickness, will answer as the basis of an arrow-head."

"The master workman, seated on the ground, lays one of these flakes on the palm of his left hand, holding it firmly down with two or more fingers of the same hand, and with his right hand, between the thumb and two fore-fingers, places his chisel (or punch) on the point that is to be broken off; and a cooperator (a striker) sitting in front of him, with a mallet of very hard wood, strikes the chisel (or punch) on the upper end, flaking the flint off on the under side, below each projecting point that is struck. The flint is then turned and chipped in the same manner from the opposite side, and so turned and chipped until the required shape and dimensions are obtained, all the fractures being made on the palm of the hand."

"In selecting a flake for the arrowhead, a nice judgment must be used, or the attempt will fail: a flake with two opposite parallel, or nearly parallel, planes is found, and of the thickness required for the centre of the arrow-point. The first chipping reaches near to the centre of these planes, but without quite breaking it away, and each chipping is shorter and shorter, until the shape and the edge of the arrow-head are formed."

"The yielding elasticity of the palm of the hand enables the chip to come off without breaking the body of the flint, which would be the case if they were broken on a hard substance. These people have no metallic instruments to work with, and the instrument (punch) which they use, I was told, was a piece of bone ; but on examining it, I found it to be a substance much harder, made of the tooth (incisor) of the sperm-whale, which cetaceans are often stranded on the coast of the Pacific. This punch is about six or seven inches in length, and one inch in diameter, with one rounded side and two plane sides ; therefore presenting one acute and two obtuse angles, to suit the points to be broken.

This operation is very curious, both the holder and the striker singing, and the strokes of the mallet given exactly in time with the music, and with a sharp and rebounding blow, in which, the Indians tell us, is the great medicine (or mystery) of the operation." (Last Rambles among the Indians, Catlin).

 

[joshuaream]

Probably not worth the effort to respond, but what the heck.

1) Then why was he doing it ? The painting records a fact.

​

The joy of Ben. The painting is called Making Flint Arrowheads- Apachees. Ignore the fact that Catlin identified the material as flint in the name of the painting and in the description, and that these are Plains Apache from the use of the teepees and therefore outside of the common obsidian areas, clearly the material is Obsidian. ToddsPoint point is valid, why do that with obsidian?


​

2) FWIW, I don't see anything wrong with using this forum to set the record straight. Especially since he's been permanently silenced at the original site.

What record is he setting strait? He wasn't silenced, he was banned for very specific reasons of harassing people. It's happened to him on a couple of sites. I think it's messy to drag those to a 3rd or 4th forum, but apparently you disagree.

I have his emails routed to a folder in gmail that I rarely look at, but I just did. I have 4.6 gigabits of unwanted emails that I have received because I share my email address with him back in 2012. The largest email has 76 attachments, you were cc'd on it. Ben likes to preach, and if you don't listen, he keeps on preaching. If you ask him to stop, or tell him you aren't interested, he keeps going.​

 

[uniface]

Ben likes to preach, and if you don't listen, he keeps on preaching.

That is one way of looking at it. Another is that he is providing extensive supporting data -- usually in the face of claims that his allegations have no basis in fact. I've seen that again and again. And again.

 

[1320]

No one has ever said a painting is worth a thousand words. Artist of this era were known to use "flexibility" in their craft. Even though it may not accurately reflect the scene, it's still an interesting piece. I wouldn't make too much of an argument on how to construct a stone tool based on one painting/description. It's just one small piece of information that aides in modern day interpretation of how things were made prehistory.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

1) Then why was he doing it ? The painting records a fact.

2) FWIW, I don't see anything wrong with using this forum to set the record straight. Especially since he's been permanently silenced at the original site.

We do not allow bringing drama from other forums here. Nothing wrong with the threads posted, but leave the comments on any drama and reference to other forums and issues out of posts made on TreasureNet.

 

[BenjaminE]

* For those who are interested, it appears that this painting was painted in La Paz, on the Colorado River, between California and Arizona. It was painted on Catlin's return trip from the Pacific coast, after crossing through San Diego.

Here are some notes on La Paz, for those who are interested:

"La Paz was a mining camp, first settled in 1862, about 135 miles above Yuma on the Colorado River. In 1863 it was reported as having a population of 5,000, mostly engaged in placer mining. During its heyday, over eight million dollars worth of gold was taken from the placers in its vicinity."

"...La Paz. The town was the county seat of Yuma County from the in- stitution of territorial government until 1870, when a flood changed the course of the river and left La Paz without a landing place for river traffic. Since then the town has faded..."

In case anyone is interested, the way that gold placer was frequently recovered along the Colorado River is that when the water levels were down, prospecters would go along the bedrock with small whisk brooms, and sweep out the contents found in trapped potholes. Quite frequently, they would find gold trapped in these potholes, after local flooding. Interestingly enough, it sounds like the Apaches were in the area, before the mining boom started.

 

[scotto]

That is one way of looking at it. Another is that he is providing extensive supporting data -- usually in the face of claims that his allegations have no basis in fact. I've seen that again and again. And again.

You don't seem to get it. And it doesn't surprise me, either.