Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools [Paperback]

John C. Whittaker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1994

Flintknapping is an ancient craft enjoying a resurgence of interest among both amateur and professional students of prehistoric cultures. In this new guide, John C. Whittaker offers the most detailed handbook on flintknapping currently available and the only one written from the archaeological perspective of interpreting stone tools as well as making them. Flintknapping contains detailed, practical information on making stone tools. Whittaker starts at the beginner level and progresses to discussion of a wide range of techniques. He includes information on necessary tools and materials, as well as step-by-step instructions for making several basic stone tool types. Numerous diagrams allow the reader to visualize the flintknapping process, and drawings of many stone tools illustrate the discussions and serve as models for beginning knappers. Written for a wide amateur and professional audience, Flintknapping will be essential for practicing knappers as well as for teachers of the history of technology, experimental archaeology, and stone tool analysis.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A mid-range user's guide to flintknapping is long overdue. There have been some admirable attempts to produce such a volume, but these have been targeted at specific, fairly narrow audiences. Not so with Flintknapping. . . . [Whittaker's] clear aim is to reach professional archaeologists as well as hobbyists. I believe he achieves this goal with incredible skill and humor. . . . I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in flintknapping. (Plains Anthropologist )

Product Details

• Paperback: 351 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press; 1 edition (1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 029279083X
• ISBN-13: 978-0292790834
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From rough rock to finished points, May 18, 2001

By 

Tom harvey (Des Moines, IA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools (Paperback)

Doctor Whittaker, currently teaching at Grinnell College in Central Iowa, is a passionate advocate of stone tool technology methods. He tries to spend each Friday afternnon working with interested students of the flintknapping craft, has a very active role in atl-atl manufacture and contests, and Lord only knows what else! But more important to me, he is a real person, not a glory-hound or scholarly intellectual snob. He is willing to share patiently with his students not just his experience and knowledge, but the tact that allows them to learn flintknapping at their own pace until they recognize their own need for his further tutelage...rare attributes for this day and mind-set. After receiving the book for a Christmas gift,Iwas fortunate enough to witness a demonstration by one of his students held at the Des Moines Lapidary Society Meeting that led me to Professor Whittaker's Friday "knap-ins". Within a few weeks I too was capable of smacking rocks together then poking at them with pieces of deer antler and producing a serviceable facsimile of a stone dart or arrow point. As I continue to observe Dr. Whittaker and several of his more proficient flintknapping guests and students, I am encouraged to keep improving my skill and knowledge, not just about stone toolmaking, but of the early peoples who mastered that and other survival skills thousands of years ago. It is also a link to the field of archaeology/anthropology that has always fascinated me.

The book was well-researched, edited to be easily understood by a larger audience than most of the pedantic, overly technical works of similar nature, and contains little nuggets of wisdom that, upon review, hold the keys to successful flintknapping. I would recommend this work to teachers, students, others of similar interests.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A complete guide to the processes of flintknapping, May 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools (Paperback)

This book is useful in that it teaches you about modern and ancient flintknapping. It helps the reader to understand how flintknapping works and how to do it yourself. It also demonstrates how to identify lithic flakes from an archaeological deposit. A must have for flintknappers and archaeology students interested in the study of ancient lithics.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A solid learning reference, March 26, 2007

By 

Gerard P. Abbatte (Western New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools (Paperback)

I found some artifacts as a boy and have always wanted to learn flintknapping. My archaeologist girlfriend's collection rekindled the interest. I selected the book only based on the Amazon reviews and am well pleased at how the book has helped me learn all the basics needed to start flintknapping right from ground zero. I can now find and select good flint, prepare blanks and demonstrate the basics of hard and soft hammer flaking, pressure flaking, indirect pressure flaking and retouching to sharpen. I believe that within a few months I will be able to create a Clovis spear point of pleasing quality, but the small arrow points and pattern flaking look pretty challenging at this point. Thankfully, I have the knowledge to try now. Good book.