look harder

[jamie]

spent the day teaching primitive skills and had time to sit with a knapper who has been doing it for 40 years. this man showed me stones from every state in the union. all knappable. got a decent sample of new england stones from him as well. from heatable quartzite to rhyolite . as far as he is concerned there is knappable stone everywhere. just gotta look harder. i knew there was agate one town over from me but always thought it was too small to knapp. he showed me chunks his son found last month that were in the 5lb range. the prettiest stuff was actually out of rhode island. its a mix of quartz and jasper. heats easy and the colors are amazing. plus some jasper from pennslvania that ive never seen. its a bluish color that turns into a rainbow when heated. i'll take pics later. one thing with this guy is i'll give him the best piece of stone i have and he'll give me the worst block he has. most would throw it away but i somehow get points from it. he does it to challenge me. so as the title says if you knap and cant find local stone............look harder 

[cowboy]

Amen to that Jamie! I've found some kind of knappable rock in almost every state i've worked in usually in the dirt around the jobsites.

[Ncsnipe]

Jamie, what your saying is true. As bad as I talk about how little stone is in eastern N.C., there is some . Not far from where I live I can find knappable quartzite. Some of the nicest points I find locally are made from this material but also some of the ugliest also. I guess if you want a challenge or need rock to practice on, then yes there is probably some type of knappable rock near everyone.

[Blacktail]

thats great to hear jamie...i have wondered the same thing about rock and bow wood..thats if every state has some of some thing...hey,by the way can i put in a request...is there any way you can make or have one all ready done..a hunting head that you would use...i love looking heads that people would use for hunting and not just ohhh look at what i did..john

[Mark Anderson]

I would have to agree. Just started doing this a few months ago and I think I expected to have rock just jumping into my rock bucket but NOOO I have to actually go LOOK for it. Sometimes it's hard to find good stuff, but it's there if you look hard enough. Shoot I just looked under my garage steps and found something to practice on, a whole box of porcelain floor tiles!!!
Mark

[jamie]

its even easier for us because we are a produce and throw away society. ive made arrow heads at the park  while my kids played. piece of glass and a rock for percussion and pressure flaking and i have a functional point. blacktail, ill put some pics up later.

[JackCrafty]

Quite right Jamie!  Until a couple days ago I would have said that being a good scrounger solves 100% of your rock problems.  But after cooking my first batch of stone over the weekend, I would say that scrounging will get you 50% of the way there.  Knowing how to cook rock will get you the rest of the way.

[Tower]

True. It was easier for them( Ancient masters of the stone) to travel for material. No fences or property boundaries. I've asked some ranchers if I could pick up some rock. First they look at you a little funny then say " if your going to pickup one load you might as well get two". Usually only costs an arrowhead or two. Made from their own material. If your lucky you might even find one just laying around.

[sailordad]

now ive got to disagree with the whole "look harder" theory

i have talked to several knappers that live in my area,guys who have been knapping a long time
all of them say the same thing,good luck finding anything local to knapp
maybe southern mn where its closer to other states like iowa,and s. dakota even up near n. dakota maybe find a little here and there
but central minnesota all we have is granite,slate, and crap like that
we have agate,but for the small(i mean smaaaallll) ones you find in our area even guys like jackcrafty and billy would have a hard time to get a point from any of them
any artifacts i have seen that can proven to be found here in ctrl mn looks like material that isnt native to our area

i would realy like to see some knappible material fro this part of the state,and also know what its called and where it could be found
unles some one shows it to me,i have a hard time belieiving theres knappible material here
atleast in any quantity
i ore than likely am wrong,but like i said.ive never found any nor has any knappers i know of in the area

[JackCrafty]

Sailordad, you're right about the availability of knappable material in MN.  I did a search just for grins and came up with several research papers on lithic resources in MN.  Here's a link to one:

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~bakk0029/bakken_2011/Bakken_2011_final.pdf

Knife river flint seems to have been the material of choice at many sites, but local quartz was used as well.