heat treating stone tools

[Ken S]

I often listen to National Public Radio. Today's On Point program had a fascinating segment about a college professor who teaches a class in very primitive living. The class includes making tools of flint and using these tools to butcher meat. I have included a link. In my opinion, the most interesting part was the final caller. He described himself as a thirty year "flintknapper". He asked how early man knew how to heat treat stones. The professor did not know, but knew that we were heat treating stones to several different temperatures for five hundred thousand years!

Incidentally, when I read Thomas' fascinating posts about the Sami people, I did not know the term. I checked wickipedia and learned that Sami is the preferred designation for the people we commonly call Lapplanders.

Here is the link: (This is audio only. The flintknapper call is at around forty minutes.)

https://dcs.megaphone.fm/BUR6519353648.m...a5503da74e

Ken

[grepper]

That's pretty interesting Ken.  Looks like 25,000 or 165,000 years ago those blade aficionados suffered the same hard vs brittle trade off that we do today.  Some things never change I guess.

This dude does not understand the rock chemistry, but it's interesting nonetheless:
http://www.pugetsoundknappers.com/how_to...Table.html