That is really cool. You were able to get overshot with pressure flaking. I imagine a lot depends upon the material?
Close. In January of 2015, after five years of really intense study I realized how to create overshot by combining pressure and indirect percussion over a fulcrum, inside of leather.
This idea is actually blueprinted in a verbal explanation of native flaking processes, that I found in a lecture that was transcribed in 1879. I realized one morning that the text actually gives the blueprints for a kind of flaking that could be used to create overshot flaking, as well as regular flaking.
Twenty minutes later, I used the directions to produce overshot on raw stone, and then quartz crystal, obsidian, chert, heat treated stone, etc. Here is the flaker, so you can see the pointy tip. And, here are some of the results. I think this was my fourth successful attempt at using the process.
The narrow side of the flake is where it started. The wide side is where it ended, after turning 90 degrees, as planned. It is a true overshot, and controlled as well.
On the left side, you can see the peculiar split cone initiation that seems to have gotten some archaeologists excited. It looks like a narrow gouge in the rock, and leads to overshot, in this case.
Refitting the pieces.
Also, I showed results like this to the flintknapping community for three years, in the places where they will let me post. Over the course of three years, flintknappers came up with all sorts of guesses. But, no one could figure out how it was done. Some thought I used the flaker like a big "can opener". Others thought that I was fibbing about the tool. Others tried all sorts of ways. But, I always told them that they should check the 19th century records very very carefully, and don't assume that a method can only produce one type of flaking. I also told them that they should recheck the information that I had posted between 2010 and 2011, because the answer was always there.
Finally, after three years of testing the flintknappers, I made a video to show the process on Christmas Day, of 2017. Bear in mind that in 2010, most leading flintknappers adhered to the belief that indirect percussion was not used in bifacial reduction, but only in blade core work. I actually proved that sophisticated indirect percussion can work better than direct percussion, for a host of reasons. And, my three years of unexplained demonstrations drove the point home. Lol! By the way, that little flake scar initiation is what I believe archaeologists are calling a "split cone flake scar", or something to that effect. They tell me that this flake scar has never been reproduced experimentally, except by one method. And, that method does not produce overshots like my method, or the method derived from 19th century writings.
Anyway, to answer your question, this stone is horrible. But, I still achieved a full blown overshot, with a right angle turn prior to the break reaching the opposite edge. Also, this is a stone that percussion knappers usually cook for 12 to 15 hours, and comes from central america. It is one of the worst stones to flintknap raw. But, here you can see a full edge to edge overshot made with the tip of a deer tine, in a way that no knapper could decode, decipher, or understand, for three straight years.
Also, the newest people are having the easiest time learning, and the most experienced knappers are having the hardest time learning. Here is an example of the first overshot attempt carried out with this method by a new knapper, I think in California. Some of the newest knappers who hit the biggest overshots said that this is the easiest way to drastically thin a stone, they have ever tried. They said that it was easier than boppers, batons, billets, hammerstones, etc. And, some of these guys had only been knapping for a few months when they produced these results, within just a few attempts.
By the way, overshot is fairly easy to achieve with hammerstones. The problem is that it is mostly destructive, when carried out with hammerstones. The tine flaking process can be used to generate the overshots with control, at a much later stage, and for much greater thinning, in the very final stages. And, that will not work with hammerstones, in the final stages.
There is a tremendous need for the study of bonafide flaking tools, and potentially bonafide flaking processes. That is what makes this site so nice. The flaking tools depicted are awesome.
By the way, most knappers would have turned their noses up at a big deer tine flaking tool. No one ever expected that this tool is potentially a massive overshot maker, to the person who knows the secret.
these are a few of my sons first attempts at teaching himself to flintknap.
