Main Discussion Area > Flintknapping
question for AncientTech
Ed Brooks:
I have been watching your post like a lot of other people, & I have been very confused by your posts, like a lot of other people. I have seen many pictures of your coast to coast thinning flakes and would like to be able to do that myself (on purpose). I have seen not as many of the pictures of your tools used. However in some of the picture you showed antler punches / drifts. is this your secret. I have attached a link to some notes through the years of white man describing how the Indian was making his tools, it seems that alot of the reports they are using punches. They mention the old ways in kind of the same way I took you to mention them. Ed
http://antlerdrift.blogspot.com/2011/07/antler-drift-indirect-percussion-300.html
caveman2533:
The link you supplied is to Ben's blog.
AncientTech:
--- Quote from: Ed Brooks on August 13, 2015, 06:51:51 pm ---I have been watching your post like a lot of other people, & I have been very confused by your posts, like a lot of other people. I have seen many pictures of your coast to coast thinning flakes and would like to be able to do that myself (on purpose). I have seen not as many of the pictures of your tools used. However in some of the picture you showed antler punches / drifts. is this your secret. I have attached a link to some notes through the years of white man describing how the Indian was making his tools, it seems that alot of the reports they are using punches. They mention the old ways in kind of the same way I took you to mention them. Ed
http://antlerdrift.blogspot.com/2011/07/antler-drift-indirect-percussion-300.html
--- End quote ---
Hello Ed,
Thanks for writing. As Mr. Nissly correctly points out, it is my site.
Also, if people cannot explain my flaking - even though I show the tools - then how will they explain ancient flaking, especially when the tools cannot be seen? If people do not understand flaking that is made today, then how will they understand flaking that is over 10,000 years old?
I give myself very little credit. I saw where someone would have to pick up the slack of others, if progress was to be made. I knew that I would have to climb up on the shoulders of giants, one inch at a time. While other people read books on lithic technology, I spent years taking apart the manner in which lithic technology theories were created, going all the way back to the 1870's, when it was proposed that the gunflint knappers offered the answer - if we could only exchange their steel hammers, for rock hammerstones. Then, I had to go forwards through time, and take into account all of the evidence from the Americas. The outrepasse flaking, in raw stone, with a deer tine, is child's play. What is not "child's play" is the understanding that is behind it.
Most people look at a "tool" and a "tool process". I look at a break - its initiation, its trajectory, and its termination. What is not known is whether one can look at a break, and equate it to a tool, or a tool process. What is not known is whether one can correctly say, "This is a hard hammer flake. That is a soft hammer flake. And, the other flake is a pressure flake."
If anyone can do this, then what will they do with my flakes? People who think that they can do this are caught inside a world that they have created, via experimentation. In their world, the experimental evidence confirms the archaeological evidence, and the archaeological evidence confirms the experimental evidence. They are caught inside a world that they cannot get out of. The key to getting out of that endlessly looping world is to introduce the evidence from the Americas.
As I said, I understand a break in terms of its initiation, its trajectory, and its termination. But, I do not understand a flake, in terms of "a particular tool creates a particular effect". In some cases, such straightforward thinking may not apply, to the reality of what was once done.
Regarding antler drift, I did not use them to create any overshot flakes. The overshot flakes were created with a deer tine.
caveman2533:
--- Quote from: AncientTech on August 14, 2015, 12:42:35 am --- The overshot flakes were created with a deer tine.
--- End quote ---
That is being used as a punch or drift. The manner in which its held or struck matters not . Its still being punched. Prove me wrong.
Marc St Louis:
I have to admit that I had never tried using an antler as a punch, using a piece of hardwood as a hammer, for the purpose Ben describes until I read some of his posts. Then I tried it and it worked some of the times, when it does work it works great.
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