Flint knapping and bone working weekend
This weekend course is all about getting to grips with the tool technology of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
Specifically we will be looking at shaping flint and bone into a range of tools each with either a specific purpose such as an arrow head or as a more general shaping tool such as a
wood working adze blade.
The skills we aim to impart over the weekend's duration are centred around taking a raw material product and transforming it into a lasting item of simple functionality, beautiful aesthetics and most intriguingly huge historical importance - the very tools you are
re creating turn up in our archaeological record regularly!
You will learn the knack of how to hold, hit, abrade, score, fracture, reduce and shape both flint and bone to leave you with the intended shapes for your projects from delicate bone needle to deadly flint projectile point.
Your course begins 13:00 Friday where we introduce you to our woodland camp and give you to time to set up sleeping systems and orientate yourself to camp life. The first afternoon is dedicated to an overview of the course with examples of a range of bone and stone tools as well as the
tool kits needed to make them.
We begin by looking at making some points, awls and a needle. The kettle is always close by for hot drinks and we will break each day around 12:00 and 18:00 for meals. Work will likely continue into the evening in keeping with our more specialist courses allowing you maximum opportunity for hands-on experience.
The Saturday is spent finishing up any bone work projects and then taking a look at flint technology. You will be provided with a flint adze head to
haft using a traditional
raw hide binding before we take a look at producing Mesolithic cores from flint off which you will learn to strike a series of small blades called microliths.
We will take you through various uses of microliths before switching our attention to simple flint
arrow heads before focusing in on more precise pressure flaking of flint to give a more refined shape to your stone tools.
By the Sunday your stone age adze will be ready to take for a spin and there will be the opportunity to try out your bone tools also, utilising your bone awls to punch holes in leather and bone needles to stitch with.
We hope to both inspire you with what can be accomplished with simple natural products and equip you with practical skill sets that you can take away with you - not to mention all the bone and stone goodies that are yours to keep at the conclusion of the course.
If you have any questions about any of the above please do get in touch.