FLINTKNAPPING / FLAKING

Flaked Light

Adapted from An Extract from MA Exegesis.

Glass a Manifestation of Light, Graham Orridge, 2007

 

 

Figure 12. Spear Point. David Lyons/Alamy, 2004.


The image of a partially translucent flaked1 arrowhead (Figure 12) in New Scientist2 alerted me to the qualities of flaking and a potential application to glass. What is revealed is a rich and complex history with symbolic and aesthetic potentials to explore.

Flaking, knapping,3 or chipping4 are some common terms used for flintknapping or stone tool making. Flintknapping is the world's oldest documentable craft with a continuous history going back three million years. This leaves most of human prehistory written in the remnants of the artefact making process, or debitage5 and to a lesser degree, the artefacts themselves.6 Debitage is the predominate material archaeologists deal with in investigating the prehistoric sites of our ancestors.7 This is surprising at first until the process is understood, a flaked tool would go through many stages from spear points and butchering implements, then remade into small knives and bird killing points. These implements would be ultimately broken leaving debitage.8 Obsidian9 debitage was considered socially significant enough to be placed in the funerary wares of the elite and used as temple offerings in Mesoamerican10 and Ancient Egyptian cultures.11

The use of glass as a material for tool making pre-dates the manufacture of man-made glass and goes back to the use of the naturally occurring glass material, obsidian, which comes in many mineral forms and colours. It is predominately black in colour but it can also occur in red, green and silver through to clear. Obsidian was so sought after that it has been implicated as a major factor in the rise and fall of cities in Mesoamerica.12 With the introduction of man-made glass, societies utilizing flaked technologies readily used glass to create tools.

 



Figure13. Kimberley Points, Late 19th -Early 20th C.

Melbourne Museum Collection.

When the first telegraph lines were installed across Australia during the 19th Century, the telecommunication company began to run into problems because the local indigenous populations found out the glass insulators carrying the line made excellent material to knap and flake into tools. Consequently the lines were regularly going down as they picked this new harvest from the top of the poles. To relieve this situation extra glass insulators were left at the bottom of the telegraph poles and everyone appeared to be content.13 During this era the indigenous population also made beautifully articulated spear points from bottles and glassware, some fine examples (Figure 13) from the end of 19th century are in the Melbourne Museum and the National Museum of Australia. Flaked glass and obsidian tools not only had strong aesthetic light qualities, it was also associated symbolically with the mythology of light. The Mesoamerican cultures present the best documented examples of this association.

The Aztec Sun God Tezcatlipoca, the dark or underworld aspect of the sun, also had a manifestation as a sacrificial obsidian knife;14 the knife that resurrected the sun each morning with ritual sacrifice and offerings of blood. In Mesoamerica obsidian was seen as blood originating from the earth, giving obsidian a stronger symbolic position pertaining to it use in auto-sacrifice, or ritual blood letting.15 It was also used in a salve to heal wounds. The association with wounds, blood and medicine is an association made by archaeologists researching this field. The nature of stone, obsidian and glass often means when you work with it, blood through cuts and sore fingertips are often close by. Hence the possible progression of thought from the material that makes you bleed, to the material that is blood and thirsts for quantities of it. Obsidian has also been employed in modern surgical practices because obsidian blades are up to ten times sharper than unused scalpels. These are believed to create less cellular damage so that the incision heals quicker.16

 

Figure 14. Mayan Eccentric. Altun Ha, Belize.

 

Aside from practical qualities, workability and sharpness of initial edges, these stone and glass artefacts where also developed for purely aesthetic purposes as ritual and art objects. The term 'eccentrics' is applied to sculptural flintknapped objects. Figure 14 shows a flaked eccentric ring found in a Mayan burial cache.17 The aesthetic light quality from the surface of the opaque, transparent and translucent objects is one that interests and excites me, though if this was the case for the creators of these objects is speculative. Contemporary flintknappers in North America argue their skill has a lineage that originated in pre-history.18 There is little understanding of the aesthetic considerations of this practice and there has been little research done by art historians into this field as products of this technology being seen as mere stone tools19 and novelties in archaeological terms.

A high point of refined flintknapping came during the Mayan civilization and ritual objects such as the Flaked Effigies.(Figure 15) These demonstrate the transference of skill from producing clearly utilitarian objects such as arrow heads to producing aesthetic ritual objects.

 

 

Figure 15. Flaked Effigies, (remnants of blue cloth) Mayan Classical 850A.D.

 

National Geographic Images.


Footnotes

 

 

1See Glossary p.51

2Alun Anderson (ed.), New Scientist, 18 September 2004. p.46

3See Glossary p.51

4See Glossary p.51

5See Glossary p.51

6Whittaker, John C., Flintknapping: making and understanding stone tools, University of Texas Press, 1993.

7Whittaker, John C., Flintknapping: making and understanding stone tools, University of Texas Press, 1993. p. 276.

8Bradley, Bruce, Phd. Flintknapping featuring Clovis Technology. INTERpark Inc. DVD 73min. 2005.

9See Glossary p.51

10See Glossary p.51

11Evans, Susan Toby. Ancient Mexico & Central America: Archaeology and Culture History.: Thames and Hudson, London. 2004. p. 37.

12Whittaker, John C., Flintknapping: making and understanding stone tools, University of Texas Press, 1993, p. 69.

 13Whittaker, John C., Flintknapping: making and understanding stone tools, University of Texas Press. 1993, p. 67.

 14Whittaker, John C., Flintknapping: making and understanding stone tools, University of Texas Press, 1993, p.178

 15Evans, Susan Toby. Ancient Mexico & Central America: Archaeology and Culture History.: Thames and Hudson,London. 2004, p.98

 16 Whittaker, John C., Flintknapping: making and understanding stone tools, University of Texas Press, 1993, p. 19

17Joyce, T. A. 'Presidential Address. The "Eccentric Flints" of Central America.' The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 62. (Jan. - Jun.,1932), Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland: London pp. xvii-xxvi.

18Whittaker, John C., Flintknapping: making and understanding stone tools, University of Texas Press, 1993. p.56

19Whittaker, John C., Flintknapping: making and understanding stone tools, University of Texas Press, 1993. p.176

 

Glossary

 

Catalhoyuk

A Neolithic site in south-central Turkey, dated c6500-5500 B.C., one of the first true cities, characterized by a fully developed agriculture, extensive trading, particularly in obsidian, and having frescoed temples.

Chipping

To shape or produce by cutting or flaking away pieces. See also flaking and knapping.

Debitage

Lithic debris and discards found at the sites where stone tools and weapons were made.

Flake

To remove Flakes from surface to shape or alter. See also chipping and knapping.

Knapping

To break or chip (stone) with sharp blows, as in shaping flint or obsidian into tools. See also flaking or chipping.

Mesoamerica

Another name for Central America.

Obsidian

A usually black or banded, hard volcanic glass that displays shiny, curved surfaces when fractured and is formed by rapid cooling of lava.



List of Illustrations


Figure 12. Spear Point. David Lyons/Alamy, 2004.

 

Figure 13. Kimberley Points, Late 19th -Early 20th C. Melbourne Museum Collection.

 

Figure 14. Mayan Eccentric. Altun Ha, Belize. Drawing: Amy Henderson. Whittaker, John C., Flintknapping:making and understanding stone tools, University of Texas Press, 1993. p.48.

 

Figure 15. Flaked Effigies. Mayan Classical Period, 850a.d. National Geographic. Sept. 1991 p. 94-103.


Figure 24. Firestorm (detail). Graham Orridge. 2007. Photo: Andrew Barcham.

 

Figure 28. Mayan Eccentric.(2nd.) The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 62. (Jan. -Jun., 1932), plate v.


Bibliography


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Bradley, Bruce, Phd. Flintknapping featuring Clovis Technology. INTERpark Inc.: www.petroglyphtrail.com. DVD 73min. 2005.

 

 


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