What is Knapping? A Short History & Overview of Knapping [Updated]
With a history that spans millions of years, flint knapping is one of the oldest and most fundamental skills learned by humans and our ancestors.
Flint knapping is a useful and unique skill that is still pursued by people around the world. It is an activity that draws all of us closer and reminds us of our primitive beginnings.
What is Flint Knapping?
Knapping is the process of applying pressure and percussion via striking with other stones to conchoidal fracturing stones and minerals such as flint, chert, and obsidian to shape them into tools, weapons, and jewelry. The process of striking and chipping away at the stones to obtain the desired shape and function is known as lithic reduction.
The four primary forms of lithic reduction are indirect projectile percussion (essentially throwing a larger, heavier stone onto the stone to be broken into smaller pieces), direct projectile percussion (throwing the stone to be shaped onto a hard surface to break it apart), bipolar reduction (repeatedly smashing another stone on top of the stone to be shaped), and knapping.
The first two were likely how ancient hominins discovered that some stones could be shaped as they threw them against rock walls (a behavior that can often be seen in chimpanzees), with the latter two developing as the realization of the usefulness of this evolved more sophisticated thought processes and methods.
Knapping has been practiced for millions of years, with most research agreeing that early hominins began utilizing stone tools and tool-making in the Pleistocene around 2.5 million years ago.
The Pleistocene is an age most famously known for the evolution of woolly mammoths; ancient hominins would have used these tools to hunt mammoths for food, clothing, blankets, and building materials. However, recent studies have found fossil evidence that the use of stone tools and weapons, and therefore the practice of lithic reduction, existed as far back as 3.4 million years ago during the Pliocene.
These practices flourished around the world, wherever humans and our hominin ancestors were found, showing it to be a relatively basic concept to organisms with adequate cognitive functioning and physical ability. The most well-known non-human species to use knapping and stone tools are bonobos and chimpanzees, using them to dig, break open nuts and fruits, and even as thrown projectiles to fight and hunt.
Corvids also make superb use of various materials to make tools, from sticks and grasses to stone, utilizing them to solve complex puzzles, obtain food, and even just to seemingly entertain themselves. It can be argued that corvids utilize direct projectile percussion, throwing items such as bones and nuts onto stones to break them or throwing stones onto said items to achieve the same goal. At times, they may throw or drop stones to break them into smaller bits so that they can be used for a specific purpose.
- Allen Key Included
- Adjustable copper tip
- Grooved rubber hand pad for easy flake removal
Human and Non-Human History of Flint Knapping
Knapping has been practiced for millions of years, with most research agreeing that early hominins began utilizing stone tools and tool-making in the Pleistocene around 2.5 million years ago.
The Pleistocene is an age most famously known for the evolution of woolly mammoths; ancient hominins would have used these tools to hunt mammoths for food, clothing, blankets, and building materials. However, recent studies have found fossil evidence that the use of stone tools and weapons, and therefore the practice of lithic reduction, existed as far back as 3.4 million years ago during the Pliocene.
These practices flourished around the world, wherever humans and our hominin ancestors were found, showing it to be a relatively basic concept to organisms with adequate cognitive functioning and physical ability. The most well-known non-human species to use knapping and stone tools are bonobos and chimpanzees, using them to dig, break open nuts and fruits, and even as thrown projectiles to fight and hunt.
Corvids also make superb use of various materials to make tools, from sticks and grasses to stone, utilizing them to solve complex puzzles, obtain food, and even just to seemingly entertain themselves. It can be argued that corvids utilize direct projectile percussion, throwing items such as bones and nuts onto stones to break them or throwing stones onto said items to achieve the same goal. At times, they may throw or drop stones to break them into smaller bits so that they can be used for a specific purpose.
Nowadays, knapping is most often practiced to recapture our history and create authentic, unique tools and jewelry that most closely mimic those made by the native indigenous peoples of Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Australia over the last several thousand years.
The art and practice is also a powerful bonding experience with both ourselves and others, as many people gather around to learn and create something incredibly ancient that far predates us, and yet somehow feels so primitively instinctual.
Striking the stones rather fosters an indescribable sense of becoming acutely aware of and connected to who we are as modern humans through doing something that was vital to the survival of our ancestors, and, by extension, us.
What are Common Knapping Materials & Tools?
Stones used in knapping must be conchoidal fracturing stones; in other words, when chipped they must create a smooth, semi-rounded surface. These conchoidal fractures make excellently sharp, reliable, and durable tools and weapons and beautifully smooth jewelry.
Most commonly, flint, obsidian, jasper, agate, novaculite, and chert are used as these all have a very fine grain that lends to easily manipulated, sleek conchoidal fractures, which in turn mean sleek and precise shaping and edging when knapping. In addition, they possess a high concentration of microcrystalline silica that makes them hard, durable, and exceptionally sharp.
Fire is typically used after harvesting these stones to burn off any dirt or external impurities and make them easier to work with. Both in ancient and modern times, bone, wood, antler, and other stones are used as hammers or picks to knap. However, some modern knappers utilize metal tools to speed up the process.
Original, ancient knappers likely just smashed two stones together until one fractured to create a small piece and/or a sharp edge that could be utilized for the desired purpose.
As time went on, our prehistoric ancestors figured out how to streamline the process to make a greater variety of tools, weapons, and artifacts more efficiently to serve a greater variety of purposes and achieve a greater number of goals (obtain food and hides, make clothing, fight off predators and competitors, create jewelry to appear more attractive to mates, etc.).
No one can know for certain whether knapping was a purposeful experiment, or discovered accidentally. Likely, it was a combination of both.
Imagine living three million years ago. One community member angrily throws a stone against a wall due to losing valuable hunting territory to an intruding, larger community, and the stone breaks. You see this, and notice that it breaks into smaller pieces. Some are sharp. The image is imprinted in your brain, and at some point you realize that those small, sharp pieces may prove useful. This is just a theory, but makes sense given the observational, creative nature of hominids.
- Allen Key Included
- Adjustable copper tip
- Grooved rubber hand pad for easy flake removal
What Can You Make Knapping?
Prehistoric hominins typically made knives, daggers, arrowheads, spears, and hand axes. Timelines of the Stone Age indicate that the very first stone tools, found several millions years ago, were simply stones that were chipped away just enough to create sharp edges that could be used to cut through thick hides, chop up meat and other materials, and scrape to create things such as petroglyphs.
Stone axes have been dated as far back as 1.7 million years ago. Handheld daggers, cleavers, and other more pointed tools originated around 200,000 years ago.
The oldest known knapped jewelry is approximately 100,000 years old. More sophisticated tools like spears, arrowheads, chisels, and even needles to sew clothing have been dated to 20,000 years old.
Approximately 12,000 years ago, knapping was utilized to fashion hooks and barbs to create nets for fishing, as well as throwing harpoons.
Today, knapping is used to craft beautiful stone bricks for architecture, jewelry, and to replicate ancient artifacts. Some universities even have classes that teach knapping, as a means of better understanding the ancient peoples and technology that led us where we are today.
Is Knapping Dangerous? What are the Hazards?
Knapping is considered quite dangerous, with cuts ranging from mild to severe being very common due to using extraordinarily sharp materials. Stone flakes can also be accidentally driven into the skin as they fall.
Do be sure to wear protective clothing, including knapping knee pads and gloves. In addition, wear eye protection to prevent any flakes or dust from getting into the eyes, as the bits, even if tiny and dust-like, will create minute cuts and scars on the cornea.
Similarly, wear a dust mask as breathing in the sharp particles will cut the lungs and can lead to silicosis. While this condition is unlikely to develop in those that knap occasionally as a hobby as it traditionally affected flint-knap miners, a mask should still be worn, and work should be conducted in a well-ventilated area.
Where Can You Learn Flint Knapping?
Knapping is fairly popular, and as such there are a plethora of ways to learn about it. A quick online search yields thousands of results around the world – workshops offered by both fellow hobbyists as well as actual archaeologists (such as those with the National Park Service), university classes, exhibitions, online videos, and even via solo research – like checking out this website!
- Allen Key Included
- Adjustable copper tip
- Grooved rubber hand pad for easy flake removal