Everything about Flint Tool totally explained
Chipped stone tools were made by
stone age peoples worldwide.
Paleolithic tools were relatively simple, repeated small flakes being struck or pressed from a cobble or nucleus until the required shape was achieved. This is called
knapping.
Freshly made
Mesolithic chipped stone tools are very sharp, much sharper than the
bronze or even
iron blades that eventually replaced them. However they were brittle and easily damaged and couldn't be easily sharpened. Mesolithic stone tools were, perhaps, the first disposable mass-produced commodity. However, during Neolithic times highly polished blades were valuable tools which were routinely resharpened by careful flaking away from the cutting edge, by repolishing, or by a combination of both.
By the
Neolithic in
Europe the manufacture of
chert and obsidian blades had become a highly skilled industry (see
Tool stone).
Polished stone axes
During the
Neolithic period, large axes were made from flint
nodules by chipping a rough shape, a so-called "rough-out". Such products were traded across a wide area. The rough-outs were then polished to give the surface a fine finish to create the axe head. Polishing not only increased the final strength of the product but also meant that the head could penetrate wood more easily.
Such axe heads were needed in large numbers for forest clearance and the establishment of settlements and farmsteads, a characteristic of the Neolithic period. There were many sources of supply, including
Grimes Graves in
Suffolk,
Cissbury in
Sussex and
Spiennes near
Mons in
Belgium to mention but a few. In
Britain, there were numerous small quarries in
downland areas where flint was removed for local use, for example.
Many other rocks were used to make stone axes, including the
Langdale axe industry as well as numerous other sites such as
Penmaenmawr and
Tievebulliagh in
Co Antrim,
Ulster. In Langdale, there many
outcrops of the
greenstone were exploited, and knapped where the stone was extracted. The sites exhibit piles of waste flakes, as well as rejected rough-outs. Polishing improved the
mechanical strength of the tools, so increasing their life and effectiveness. Many other tools were developed using the same techniques. Such products were traded across the country and abroad.
Modern uses
For specialist purposes
glass knives are still made and used today, particularly for cutting
thin sections for
electron microscopy in a technique known as
microtomy. Freshly cut blades are always used since the sharpness of the edge is very great. These knives are made from high-quality manufactured
glass, however, not from natural raw materials such as chert or obsidian. Surgical knives made from
obsidian are still used in some delicate surgeries.
In fiction
Further Information
Get more info on 'Flint Tool'.
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