Zuma,
No, no, I was referring to you cutting cane for dart shafts. I assure you you looked very manly doing it and several of the ladies in the village took notice.
Ben,
I have been doing direct percussion by antler for the past year like this:
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/60533/Antler-hammers
My approach to figuring things out is differnet than yours. I don't put much stock in either the archaeology or the post contact (often very post contact) accounts because I think way too much information is missing. I think it is like trying to understand the forest from too few trees.
Rather my approach is this: We are talking about "fully modern" humans here, people with equal intelligence to us, that had tens of thousands of years to figure out the most economical way to accomplish a technology, that while fairly complex, is not nearly as complex as many other things stone age peoples also figured out. Let me draw an analogy: There is a discussion here about the Spanish Diggings, a quarry where quartzite was dug out of pits in Wyoming. Similar pits have been found around D.C where quartzite cobbles where extracted, and stone age people in England were digging something like 12 feet down to get at the the "floor stone", the highest quality flint. Without ever seeing any of the tools from a dig, and without any eyewitness accounts, I can tell you the primary tool used and what it was made of with a high level of confidence. They used a pick. Why? Because a pick is a really good tool for digging and prying rocks out of dirt, and these were all groups of smart humans, so they would figure that out. The picks were made of elk antler at the two American sites and Red Deer antler in England. I can reasonably surmise this because antler of those types was available to the respective groups, and the material is the most economical choice because it has the right strength and durability, comes in big enough pieces, and is naturally pick shaped.
Here's how I apply that thinking to percussion knapping tools, hammer stones first: They make sense early on, being very efficient for large mass reduction, and save wear and tear on valuable antler tools. But they very quickly loose that efficiency. As you note, they are very hard to learn to master for use in later stage work. Very few modern knappers take the time to master doing later stages of bifacial reduction As you note, you have to compensate for the tool, such as by "torquing" the preform. That is backwards from how humans use tools. We don't compensate for the tool, we built the tool to compensate for us. I can't stress this point highly enough. with hammer stones not because they are lazy, but because they are just as smart as their stone age ancestors. Or consider it another way: Billions of human brains over tens of thousands of years of bifacial knapping didn't get past doing the lion's share of the work by banging one rock against another? (That is meant a bit tongue-in-cheek.)
As to direct percussion by antler: It works. Really, really well. It is very efficient. There is something nearly magical about how antler will grab the fine edge of a piece of "flint" and peel off long flakes. There are many species of deer, inhabiting many habitat types. In what is either intelligent design, or some really good luck, these deer drop their antler on the ground and grow new ones every year. Any smart human can very easily connect the dots and see that if you hit flint with antler, good things happen. Your objection to the antler billet is that you don't see it in the archaeological collections. My (halfway) objection is that, like hammer stones, it is too primitive, and still involves too much of the user compensating for the tool, instead of the other way around. So I would say that if you know antler making rapid contact with flint produces the results you want, then it is just a matter of building the tool around the antler. In a sense, it is like the copper bopper. There is just one thin layer of copper on the end, with the rest of tool built so a human hand can efficiently deliver the copper to the flint.
But I must stress I am not trying to convert anyone to my radical methods. I have been trying to avoid mentioning them at all so as not to side track the discussion. Rather, I am trying to explain my thought process in trying to work out an "abo" toolkit. I am very interested in alternate methods. I would very much like to try the method you kind of described, with striking from the side, and pulling off the flake. I think you are on to something there and I think it may fill in some of the holes I have found in my own process. If you would be willing describe the process in more detail, perhaps with pictures or (if I can dream big), video, whether that be here, at another site or privately, I would deeply appreciate it.
Thanks,
Keith
Hello Keith,
Your approach is probably comparable to the use of the antler mallet, which was frequently hafted. I also see value in any form of experimentation, because it helps a person learn about various attributes of flaking processes. Also, when something does not work - or partially works - a person has to figure out why.
Here is some of my own experimental work, that does not necessarily have any tie to ancient knapping - maybe, maybe not.
Wooden direct percussion hand hammer:
Wooden indirect percussion coast to coast flake:
Clovis-like flaking made on anvil, but probably not Clovis, due to lack of outrépasse potential (2012):
I posted photos of the last round of flaking on Paleoplanet, asked if it looked Clovis, and got banned. LOL! Actually, it is not even Clovis. Not a single one of the flakes could ever produce outrepasse traits. You need something far more sophisticated to throw outrepasse with a flaker process like this.
So, I stuck it out two and a half more years. One day, I had an epiphany. I was thinking about the characteristics of bipolar, in terms of signatures. And, I was mentally comparing that to hard hammer overshot, in terms of signatures - since both produce long flakes. And, I could not figure out what caused the break to turn, prior to reaching the opposite edge, as is found in true late stage Clovis outrepasse.
Suddenly, I saw the answer. It was like seeing through time, as if I had X-ray eyesight through time and space. I actually saw the break happening from inside the break, if it makes any sense. It was amazing. And, it had nothing to do with either hard hammer overshot, or coast to coast bipolar. It was something else. So, I am certain that my experiment of 2012 was not accurate. By the way, ever wonder why some bifacial flake scars are curved, and others are flat, when both are made via indirect percussion? That is something that became apparent, in the midst of one failed experiment - jewels can come out of failure. Lol!
Here is an update, that the experiments of 2012 could not produce:
Here is the far edge:
Removal:
That bad boy did not come from an experiment. It came from an epiphany I had, based in all of the information that I have amassed in my head. And, it ties in to ethnographic data, too.
"I don't put much stock in either the archaeology or the post contact (often very post contact) accounts because I think way too much information is missing."The problem is not that we have information missing. The problem is that we do not understand what we got. The theories of flintknapping were mostly created before the evidence from the Americas was ever known, much less understood. And, once people finally started looking at the evidence, through all of the theories, it never made any sense. In a nutshell, the theories concocted in Europe are not necessarily applicable, in the Americas. I know that people will hang on to them, until the death. But, they will never be able to take simple tools - like a deer tine - and show the awesome flaking that I just showed, with Europe's theories.
"I think it is like trying to understand the forest from too few trees."Museums, and universities, are chock full of evidence that is going unrecognized. The known evidence does not conform to well circulated theories, like the antler baton theory. Since the time of Crabtree, it looks like people stopped trying to tackle the evidence, for the most part.
"Rather my approach is this: We are talking about "fully modern" humans here, people with equal intelligence to us, that had tens of thousands of years to figure out the most economical way to accomplish a technology, that while fairly complex, is not nearly as complex as many other things stone age peoples also figured out."It does not look like people "figured it out", here. It looks like the First Americans arrived here with lithic traditions intact. And, it looks like they were passed down, from father to son, for millennia. The pattern is so deeply ingrained, it can be seen on both continents. The fluted fishtail points of South America, encompass a coastal distance of about 22,000 miles, or maybe more. And, the fluted Clovis, and Clovis-like points of North America span all lower 48 states, parts of Canada, and are even found at a relatively late date in Alaska. Similarly, it has been reported that the paleoindian blade/core traditions of South America appear to be the same as the Clovis blade/core traditions of North America.
Since the languages of both continents contain common peculiar linguistic features, known as "pan-Americanisms", and both continents displayed fluting technology, and Clovis type blade core technology, at a very early date, it could be argued that the impact of the arrival of the First Americans was in the dispersion of common lithic knowledge, and language(s).
Also, if you track the spread of the Western Uto-Aztecan dialect, from central Mexico, throughout the west, and up into the Great Basin, what can be seen is that this spread approximates the spread of early paleoindian point types, in the west. Yet, after the advent of the archaic, these people were hardly moving, at all. Again, one can see a common source for language, and a common lithic technology - Clovis, at the roots of western Uto-Aztecan history.
The idea that people made up flintknapping, in the Americas, over thousand of years, is probably a mistaken idea (one that I used to believe, myself). I appears to be the result of an inherited culture, along with the presumed use of the atlatl, and the presumed companionship of hunting dogs. The reason that lithic end products would have looked different in the archaic era, would have to do with different end goals, and major restrictions on access to high grade materials, due to a lack of mobility. But, just because end types change, does not necessarily mean that technology changed. A change in end types does not necessarily mean a change in technology, as some may assume.
"As you note, you have to compensate for the tool, such as by "torquing" the preform. That is backwards from how humans use tools. We don't compensate for the tool, we built the tool to compensate for us. I can't stress this point highly enough." Right. For example, we do not make the screw adapt to the screwdriver. The screwdriver is optimally designed to remove screws. The same is also true of bolts, and wrenches. We do not adapt the bolt to the wrench, to make the wrench work.
But, do you know what the flaw is with this perspective? The modern person is looking at "tools" the way we look at tools of the modern Industrial Revolution. Flintknapping is a DYNAMIC process, with many elements - not just the tool. This is where most all knappers take a wrong turn, and fail to recognize the evidence, even when it is under their noses.
How many other people can make outrepasse with a common deer tine? I can, and have done so many times. Yet, the actual process involves the integration of three flaking processes, into a single process, as was recorded over a hundred years ago. Yet, if I handed a hundred knappers the very same "tool", I do not believe that one of them could use it to create outrepasse, unless they had specialized knowledge. And, that knowledge pertains to a fairly dynamic process.
The "tool A creates effect B" line of thinking works wonderful in factories, automotive assembly lines, machine shops, etc. But, harboring this outlook makes it far harder to understand the dynamic processes of Native American flintknapping. The only cure for this is immersion in the right type of evidence.
"As to direct percussion by antler: It works. Really, really well. It is very efficient. There is something nearly magical about how antler will grab the fine edge of a piece of "flint" and peel off long flakes." The late Philip Churchill - who was one of the best replicators in the world - told me that the reason that modern knappers do not use antler is because they cannot get the flake scars to look authentic enough. For this reason, the best replicators use copper, not antler. I think that Woody Blackwell is living proof that there must be something wrong with the antler baton theory. On top of that, the early replicators, like Bordes, and Crabtree, used massive clubs, while also developing heat treating. In South America, there is no heavy antler. The largest cervid, in South America, is a deer similar to a white tail deer. They do not have elk, or moose, in South America, except those which have been imported. Meanwhile, the lithic traditions continued unabated, in South America, from the moment of colonization.
Actually, the description you give of antler being used to flake flint is also true of antler that is used in indirect percussion. In fact, with regard to "pitching tools", where the flaker is used in conjunction with a stone hammer, the mass of the percussor is SEPARATE from the flaking tool. In other words, if the flaking tool weighs four ounces, but the percussor weighs a pound, then which process should generate greater force? The one in which a four ounce flaker is used to strike the stone, directly? Or, the one in which a one pound stone percussor is used to strike the biface indirectly, via the four ounce flaker? The latter process should be roughly for times more powerful, since the hammerstone weight is four times heavier than the flaker weight. But, if a person factors in the possibility of increasing the force, while reducing shock (effect of intermediate object), then one might be able to apply ten times more force, while employing an indirect strike.
Some of the baton users can expound upon contact time, as being a contributor to flake length. Is it possible that indirect percussion might actually involve longer contact times, thus producing longer flakes? Look at the length of the last tine-made flake I showed. It is a monster. And, it is raw stone - the real deal. I bet the contact time was fairly long, between when the flaker was struck, and the flake detached.
As far as I can tell, the flintknapping community has never made a fair study of Native American pitching tools, while theories born in England seem to almost get a free pass. The loss is no one else's but ours.
"Your objection to the antler billet is that you don't see it in the archaeological collections. My (halfway) objection is that, like hammer stones, it is too primitive, and still involves too much of the user compensating for the tool, instead of the other way around. So I would say that if you know antler making rapid contact with flint produces the results you want, then it is just a matter of building the tool around the antler."So, we might actually agree. Ha ha. Are you advocating the antler hammer over the antler flintknapping baton? Well, it looks like the weight of history is on your side, at least regarding the use of antler hammers. I believe that the Eskimo used heavy reindeer hammers to spall stone. Also, there are scores of examples of hafted antler hammers, that had holes drilled in the middle. I have long speculated about such hammers. In early ethnographic literature, they are called "flintknapping hammers", or "antler mallets". Also, I believe that they were used as trimmers. The large preform would be laid on a buckskin pad, on an anvil. And, the knapper would strike around the edges of the preform. I have myself used hammers before, in knapping. What I ran into is that the inside tends to wear off much faster than the rest of the antler. For this reason, I have wondered whether the hammers were actually used in indirect percussion - antler on antler. If so, the tools would probably never wear out.
I think that your experiments could be really helpful, in better understanding this subject. Don't worry about what other people think. In a hundred years, we will all be gone. But, a real development might help someone in the future.
Ben
