Cheers Jared 
Thank you for the link.
I wonder if those tools were for working hides or fibres ?
M
Thank you for the link.
I wonder if those tools were for working hides or fibres ?
M
Limestone
- Thread starter Janne
- Start date
Thanks, Jared, it's a start. In the American southwest, several big sites have been discovered simply by burning off all the scrub vegetation.
That revealed the stone foundations for dozens of structures.
Your sites have far more complex histories with successive waves of invaders.
That revealed the stone foundations for dozens of structures.
Your sites have far more complex histories with successive waves of invaders.
My mentor is/was Carl Lee - one of the few full time professional flint knappers in Britain ... and while the SE of England has lots of flint Wales and the North has none to speak of.
My flint comes to me via friends who visit the SE
The tools? A careful and microscopic check of the striking surfaces for phytoliths would help.
Detailed work, maybe detailed hide and skin work. Toddy's suggestion of fiber work is good.
The tool with the curved working edge: in North America, for shaving irregularities from arrow shafts.
Bigger stone hammers were used all across the great plains of North America for breaking bison bones.
In part for marrow to eat, in part for brains for hide tanning. A bison skull is about 4cm thick.
Inner 1/4" surface, outer 1/4" surface and the cavity is filled with a web of bone pillars.
There are very large garbage middens as well. You soon learn that there is not a piece of bone in any midden
larger than a postage stamp. The indigenous people missed nothing.
Detailed work, maybe detailed hide and skin work. Toddy's suggestion of fiber work is good.
The tool with the curved working edge: in North America, for shaving irregularities from arrow shafts.
Bigger stone hammers were used all across the great plains of North America for breaking bison bones.
In part for marrow to eat, in part for brains for hide tanning. A bison skull is about 4cm thick.
Inner 1/4" surface, outer 1/4" surface and the cavity is filled with a web of bone pillars.
There are very large garbage middens as well. You soon learn that there is not a piece of bone in any midden
larger than a postage stamp. The indigenous people missed nothing.
My mentor is/was Carl Lee - one of the few full time professional flint knappers in Britain ... and while the SE of England has lots of flint Wales and the North has none to speak of.
My flint comes to me via friends who visit the SE
I went to the Bushcraft show with Warthog1981 it's first year. I sat entranced watching Karl make a flint spearhead shape. Absolutely brilliant
I promised him that if I ever went again and he was going to be there that I'd bring him down some pitchstone from Arran and bloodstone from Rhum. I should really just find them and get an address for him and post the stuff to him.
M
Last edited:
Let me guess, John: that flint can be used to define a major N/S trade route.
I guess there's still evidence of paleo flint mining in the SE?
I'll bet they traded it for all kinds of things.
Impurities in copper and in obsidian volcanic glass has defined a huge web of trade routes all over North America.
My brother used to hang out with a gang of paleo-minded people who made bows and arrows.
Formal membership reuired deer slaying.
Anyway, my brother was the member who cut, straightened and scraped the arrow shafts, dozens at a time.
He got to watch the flint knappers fake any paleo pattern you could show them.
I guess there's still evidence of paleo flint mining in the SE?
I'll bet they traded it for all kinds of things.
Impurities in copper and in obsidian volcanic glass has defined a huge web of trade routes all over North America.
My brother used to hang out with a gang of paleo-minded people who made bows and arrows.
Formal membership reuired deer slaying.
Anyway, my brother was the member who cut, straightened and scraped the arrow shafts, dozens at a time.
He got to watch the flint knappers fake any paleo pattern you could show them.
Toddy - Karl (got it wrong with the "C" - sorry Karl!) Lees details - https://www.primitive-technology.co.uk
Robson - big trade all over Britain ... but the Welsh are notoriously tight and not much in the way of flint in the archaeology - it is thought that slate (lots in Wales) was used for poorer quality blades ... slate rots back to mud over the years!
Robson - big trade all over Britain ... but the Welsh are notoriously tight and not much in the way of flint in the archaeology - it is thought that slate (lots in Wales) was used for poorer quality blades ... slate rots back to mud over the years!
Come to derbyshire, the limestone here is harder than a coffin nail. I'v had a fat lip from a hammered off chunk before
I subscribe to an internet news headline thing for archaeology.
Just today, the article came up about the dig in Wales.
Like sunndog says: there's limestone and then there's limestone.
Those tools are shaped from the hardest sort and the pointed ends have all been pounted pretty hard.
One suggestion was that the tools were used for hand-pecking designs in larger rock surfaces.
The majority of the older buildings at the Saskatoon campus of the University of Saskatchewan are all
faced with cut limestone, foraged across the prairies as glacial erratics. It's magnificent stuff, rotten with fossils.
All done by immigrant teams of Italian stone masons. I did time there fro a couple of degrees. Ain't hurt me none.
Just today, the article came up about the dig in Wales.
Like sunndog says: there's limestone and then there's limestone.
Those tools are shaped from the hardest sort and the pointed ends have all been pounted pretty hard.
One suggestion was that the tools were used for hand-pecking designs in larger rock surfaces.
The majority of the older buildings at the Saskatoon campus of the University of Saskatchewan are all
faced with cut limestone, foraged across the prairies as glacial erratics. It's magnificent stuff, rotten with fossils.
All done by immigrant teams of Italian stone masons. I did time there fro a couple of degrees. Ain't hurt me none.
Hope this works. Absolutely crazy list of stuff, world wide. Nope, not allowed to paste a link.
www.archaeologica.org/NewsPage.htm
Better by far than most other world news that I'm about to read.
www.archaeologica.org/NewsPage.htm
Better by far than most other world news that I'm about to read.
You and BCUK are all most welcome. From the sublime to the ridiculous and more.
The technologies for high temperatures for glass and smelting metals feed my curiosity.
The technologies for high temperatures for glass and smelting metals feed my curiosity.
snappingturtle: that's were the archaeological news site helps so much = you get to see so many of the lithic artifacts, you'll never run short of design ideas.
There are still lots of things which work well in stone ( mortar & pestle for herbs/spices), metals just look silly to me.
My bow drills have stone bearing blocks. Authentic paleo nutcracker stones are still being found in the New England states. Make one!
In the Americas, there were no intermediate phases. With european contact, the indigenous people jumped straight from stone to iron, just about overnight.
On the west coast (British Columbia & Washington) though, the natives were already familiar with iron for tool & weapon tips & blades.
The Japan Current has been delivering Asian rubbish for millenia.
As I live in the Rocky Mountains, there's no shortage of stone, hard and soft, in every direction.
I should feel a little embarassed for not making more use of the piles of stone that I've brought home over the years.
Even little bits I can use as inlay in wood carvings.
There are still lots of things which work well in stone ( mortar & pestle for herbs/spices), metals just look silly to me.
My bow drills have stone bearing blocks. Authentic paleo nutcracker stones are still being found in the New England states. Make one!
In the Americas, there were no intermediate phases. With european contact, the indigenous people jumped straight from stone to iron, just about overnight.
On the west coast (British Columbia & Washington) though, the natives were already familiar with iron for tool & weapon tips & blades.
The Japan Current has been delivering Asian rubbish for millenia.
As I live in the Rocky Mountains, there's no shortage of stone, hard and soft, in every direction.
I should feel a little embarassed for not making more use of the piles of stone that I've brought home over the years.
Even little bits I can use as inlay in wood carvings.
Similar threads
