Pressure flaking a point- start to finish.

[Cannonman17]

Here's the process, I cheated some though. I was going to go through from the cobble, to the spaul, to the percussion flaking and then the pressure flaking but after digging around in my bag of flintknapping material I found I didn't have a lot of good material left. Furthermore I had already knapped all the big stuff into preforms- had some Dacite, quartzite, and noviculite pieces but nothing really nice so... I thought I could at least demonstrate part of the process- the pressure flaking. I used a pre cut slab (cheating) the end result is the same it just saves A LOT of time in trying to spaul a decent piece. Hope you guys aren't too disappointed - First picture is my tool kit, two antlers, a rock for percussion flaking and grinding, and a piece of leather.

 

[pgill]

Thanks Cannonman,,,, Stay honest ...... I do think it would be a hobby to pass the time with though Here in Africa there are some stone items made long ago, but to find them is the problem... I know of one place, but is now out of bounds... The property has been sold to a game farmer. I think when I go into that area again, I will speak to the chap and see if he will allow me to go to the area. Most of the spear and arrow heads were made out of iron, so have basically rusted away. If only we could preserve time
If you have any knives, I would like to see them..... How many heads have you found?

God bless
Peter

 

[Cannonman17]

How many points have I found? If I combine the arrowheads, atl-atl points, and knives.... I don't know, maybe 200-300. If you ever get permission to look on that game farm and do find something I hope you post it on here!!! Ten times older than what we find here- the oldest stuff I am likely to find in this state is maybe 10,000 years old but there.... WOW.

 

[pgill]

I believe there are stone heads here in South Africa, but most are the iron type like in the picture below. If you find them in a cave then they will be in good condition, but in a field they rust away to nothing.



The Zulu's were famous for their short thrusting spears. In fact Shaka was made famous because of this spear. Get in close and stab, was better than throw and miss.....

God bless
Peter

 

[Cannonman17]

Have you ever found any spears like that? Rusty or not I would trade some authentic stone points for one!

 

[pgill]

Afraid not.... But will be looking out for them when I can. I have not been in the treasure hunting hobby for very long, the only old things I have found is the Boer War Items which I posted on the site a while back.

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,49097.0.html

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,47134.0.html

But my time will come one of these days

God bless
Peter

 

[deepsix47]

....A part from the survival use of this art, what other good is there?....

That's a good question Peter. There are a number of answers but keeping a dieing art form alive and for our own general knowledge of how earlier peoples lived I think pretty well sums it up for at least many of us.

I've been fortunate having been directly involved with a number of projects that sought to duplicate the day to day life of the Mountain Man and several Native American Indian groups for extended periods of time. In the longest we lived in the field for 14 months as the people did. The things we learned were, in some cases, literaly life altering and gave all of us that stayed through to the end (16 started and 9 finished the project) a different perspective of both the people that lived in that era and of ourselves.

We also found that many of the assumed ways certain things were accomplished were unlikely as in a real life situation another way was more efficient. All in all I found it some of the best education I've ever had.
Deepsix

 

[Cannonman17]

Well, got to make a few- son wasn't into it tonight...skateboarding was the activity for him tonight. So I thought I would try and make something that I have never before tried to do.. a corner tang knife. It turned out OK but far from the spectacular stuff you see on the internet. Made a couple of smaller points to just for the heck of it. Half dollar for size comparison.

 

[COUNTRY GIRL]

Great job, OK? It's awesome. Skateboarding is probably much cooler at 10 now adays. The fact you wanted to spend the time with your son (quality time that is) is a wonderful thing and another lost art. Looks like you better get yourself a skateboard.

 

[Cannonman17]

LOL me on a skateboard? That little bit of blood in the pic up above was nothing.... I would kill myself on one of them! I'll stick to the knapping- maybe he'll want to tonight after I help him with his homework. Thanks for the kind comments but my knapping honestly isn't all that great. That corner tang knife is a bit chuncky- I still get a lot of step fractures and what not but living in Wisconsin I don't have access to good material except what I buy so I don't get to work with good materials a lot. I should put an add up here on tnet, "will knapp for obsidian or flint" or something like that. Anyways, have a good one-

 

[GabbyGEP]

Cannonman17
What is the white material that you used in your previous post? Is it heat treated? Just curious. Thanks for sharing with us.

GabbyGEP(Gaylord)

 

[Cannonman17]

Those last pieces were made from noviculite. It was heat treated but not real uniform in nature. Some of it was real glassy and with pinkish hues while other parts like the piece I made these points from was a little duller and not so glossy. I think it may have been just from un-even heat treating, but it might just be the way the material itself is to...

 

[GabbyGEP]

Cannonman17

Thanks for the information. I thought it might be but was a bit puzzled by the clarity. Once again, Thanks so much for sharing with the rest of us.

GabbyGEP(Gaylord)

 

[pgill]

Hi Cannonman17 :-)

Pray you are well? Do you harden the head with the heat? I did not know you could harden stone with heat.... Thanks for a great topic you have put on for us.
I was looking around my work place for some sort of stone that looked like flint etc, and guess what? NONE.... I never noticed before, but we do not seem to have much flint in big pieces.... I will keep looking to see what types of stone we have that could maybe be used for heads..... Umm must get to see one of the ones made here in South Africa and see what they used. Maybe quartz?

God bless
Peter

 

[Cannonman17]

pgill, Hello again. The "heat treating" isn't to harden the point but rather to make it more workable. Heat treating some materials helps it break better (makes the concoidal fracturing better) and in many cases improves the color of the material also. Don't feel bad about not having much flint around, there is almost none around where I live either- in fact I had to learn how to knapp using glass. Now I buy material to use. Quartz can be used, in fact I have found a number of arrowheads made from it BUT it is VERY difficult to work and often ends with a poor quality point. Are you thinking about taking up the hobby? If you are you should experiment on some glass but be careful- easy to cut yourself!

 

[pgill]

Thanks for the explanation Cannonman17, I am learning a lot on this topic I am not looking at making any, just curious as to what material if any is available here. I do know that many moons ago our natives did make arrows from stone, but not sure what stone they used and where they got the stone from. I must try and get to a museum to have a look at some of the arrows. 8) I am just finding this subject very fascinating, and informative, as they must of used the same or similar method that you are using to make them.
If I think of the American Indians, who had thousands of arrows,,,,, they must of had a team of people and a production running..... there only work was to make arrows?

God bless
Peter

 

[Cannonman17]

Pgill, they probably made their arrows/knives/spears out of similar materials, it doesn't have to be flint either, just any material that breaks in a predictable manner. It might seem like the Native Americans had little else to do but make arrowheads and other stone tools but that's really not the case. You have to remember that there was a fairly large population here for over ten thousand years, all of which, to some degree or another, relied upon hunting. I sometimes think about how many arrows a person might lose or break in a lifetime if half of everything you ate came from what you hunted.... I have to believe that just one person would, over the course of a lifetime produce quite a large number of stone artifacts, then if you multiply that by the number of people who were doing that at any give time, and take that and multiply it by the countless generations of people who lived here.... that ends up being a HUGE number of stone artifacts.

 

[pgill]

That is very true indeed.... But I also think about the big indian battles like "little big horn" etc.... they must of shot off plenty of arrows. So they must of had a large supply ready for battle..... Just my guess..... It is a very interesting subject indeed.
Did they not have metal for arrows in them days? or were the indians just too poor to get the metal? hehehehhe when I did CB radio many moons ago my code name was Geronimo, can you believe that? I have always been fascinated by indians.

I think I will try and find a book at the library on SA stones and see what they could of used..

God bless
Peter

 

[Cannonman17]

Pgill- the area that I live in doesn't have much material for making points- there's a big deposit that was mined extensively in pre historic times but that's over an hour away by car- I suppose if you had to walk that far to get material to make your stone tools with you would probably go there and make LOTS of points so you wouldn't have to make the journey again for a while. The Native Americans did have some metal, copper. It was found in surface deposits in the upper peninsula of Michigan and in Wisconsin and the area where copper artifacts come from is most commonly from within a couple of hundred miles of where it was mined. Copper artifacts have been found all over the United States but the vast majority are from the Northern states. They made some nice copper spears and knives, not too many arrowheads. They cold hammered the copper so it would have taken quite a while to make them, it was no doubt easier to chip out a stone point than to hammer a copper arrowhead. They also traded for metal arrowheads with the Europeans but that of course wasn't until much later.

 

[bean man]

Hi Cannon,
In the late 1800's there was a man named Frank Linderman who studied native americans for forty years. He claimed
that the plains indians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for the most part did not make or use stone points
unless they found old ones. He claimed that before white mans metal that they used bone. Lost technologies was
a poor choice of words and I apologize for that, but if this is true then the technologies at least changed. Hope to hear
your opinion on this.
bm

p.s. Hi Pete, I'm sure some arrows where flung at the little big horn but the amazing thing to me was that the sioux had over 300 different types of firearms!

 

[Cannonman17]

I don't know where to start with this one... First I have to say that almost everything in terms of what is believed about archaeology and the pre history of N. Amercia has changed since the late 1800's. In the late 1800's the majority of archaeologists sitll didn't beblieve that the Native Amercians were capable of creating the vast mound complexes like Cahokia. We now know of course that this isn't true, and likewise we have since disproved the vast majority of what was believed in the late 1800s. That being said... Native Americans, in the Great Plains, or anywhere else for that matter did use bone and/or antler points. Native Amercians also, on occasion did reuse lost points when found (although examples of this are quite rare). We also know that in the 1700-1800's the Natives of that area also used stone. So did they use bone/antler, yes, did they use old points when found, probably once in a while, did they not use stone, no. Reading up on what the "experts" thought back in those days is for the most part good entertainment but highly unreliable.