© 1994 - Tara Prindle
unless otherwise cited.
Scenes from the Eastern Woodlands
A Virtual Tour ~ Circa 1550
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Making our stone tools ... you will see us sitting on tree that a beaver has recently felled by the pond near our houses. Here we are chipping stone like nodules of flint and chert, or blocks of quartz and quartzite. We are lucky to have traded some beaver hides for some pieces of red jasper that some neighboring peoples obtained from other peoples who live far away and over the mountain range. We are using our river cobble hammer-stones to roughly chip out the shapes of our knives and arrow points and scraping tools. When we have the basic shape of our tool, then we use heavy moose antler billets to evenly flake around the edges. When the tool is nearly finished, then we use antler tines and pointed bones to pressure flake the tool so that it is perfect and sharp. Sometimes when a tool becomes dull from use, we need to resharpen the edges by chipping a new sharp edge. It is a shame when a fine tool has been resharpened so many times that it becomes too small to re-work again, but we can always go to the bedrock quarries or stream beds not too far from here to find new raw material. |
Scenes available as Fine Art Note Cards |
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Text and Graphics
© 1994 - Tara Prindle unless otherwise cited. |