Flint Knapping

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Knapping is done in a variety of ways depending on the purpose of the final product. For stone tools and flintlock strikers flint is worked using a fabricator, such as a hammerstone, to remove lithic flakes from a nucleus or core of tool stone. Stone tools can then be further refined using wood, bone, and antler tools to perform pressure flaking.

For building work a hammer or pick is used to split flint nodules supported on the lap. Often the flint nodule will be split in half to create two flints with a flat circular face for use in walls constructed of lime. More sophisticated knapping is employed to produce almost perfect cubes which are used as bricks.

In cultures that have not adopted metalworking technologies, the production of stone tools by flintknappers is common, but in modern cultures the making of such tools is the domain of experimental archaeologists and hobbyists. Archaeologists usually undertake the task so that they can better understand how prehistoric stone tools were made.

A flintknapper is an individual who shapes flint or other stone through the process of knapping or lithic reduction, to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing walls

Flint knapping for the supply of strikers for flintlock firearms was a major industry in flint bearing locations, such as Brandon in Suffolk, England, where flintknappers made strikers for export to the Congo as late as 1947.

Flintknapping for building purposes is still a skill that is practised in the flint bearing regions of Southern England, such as Sussex, Suffolk and Norfolk, and in Northern France, especially Brittany and Normandy where there is a resurgence of the craft due to government funding.

-- RebStaup - 29 Jan 2008