Ben,
So I'll tell you the brief history of eastern quartzite knapping, as i know it. A few decades ago some academic knappers/archaeologists who were good flint knappers were trying to figure out quartzite knapping based on what they were seeing in the artifacts and work sites in Virginia and New Jersey. They could see that the overall model was the same as with other lithic resources, where fairly large, fairly thin, flat bifaces were being produced at the rock sources, but they couldn't consistently match the results. Hammer stones were fine for spalling and some early work but absolutely sucked beyond that. Antler worked somewhat, some of the time, but that elevator clearly wasn't going all the way to the top. Probably based on the earlier work in Europe with boxwood billets, someone decided to try hitting the quartzite with wood. It worked. For reasons I don't understand, wood it able to consistently drive the long thinning flakes across a piece of average eastern quartzite in a way that other materials can't, to produce flat, relatively thin bifaces.
Now if I am understanding your thought process correctly, you would say that since no white men ever saw any Native Americans using wood percussion knapping tools, and since no such tools have been found by archaeologists, that method of knapping quartzite is invalid, wasn't used, isn't "abo". Is that correct?
So fast forward to a few years ago and a knapper in the Blue Ridge Mountains was looking at quartzite artifacts and work sites and trying to figure out how the hell they worked this stuff. He finds the old research, because it was made public, and tries it. It works. He puts the idea on Paleo Planet and the thread explodes, going to over 20 pages, with at least another 20 on side topics relating to quartzite knapping. So a few years later and guys up and down the east coast are working quartzite with wood and getting the same results. But no white guys ever wrote down that that is the Indian way, and where are the tools, so sorry guys, wrong, not "abo"?
So the knapper mentioned above is Pete Davis. I feel I owe a real debt to Pete. I mean if he called me up right now and said he needed help hiding a body I would actually give serious consideration to saying yes, and I'm a real Boy Scout (literally). See the thing is, I got into knapping after a neighbor showed me an "arrow head" he found. It was made of quartzite and I was determined to figure out how it could of been made. I got pretty far at figuring out knapping in general, but quartzite knapping still evaded me. So Pete putting that information out there and getting the dialogue going helped me find that "holy grail" of knapping I was looking for.
So you mentioned fluting with your method. As soon as I saw the results you were getting, I was already thinking about it's application to fluting. When you mentioned that the technique involves pulling instead of pushing the flake off, it immediately struck a chord with me because I have been thinking along the same lines but can't figure out how to do it. I'm stumbling around a dark room bumping into stuff. Can you help with the light switch?
Keith
So, do you think that Pete Davis stumbled on to something? Here is some of my wooden baton work, from around 2006 (almost 10 years prior to today, 2015):
I actually made an entire website devoted to the subject of wooden baton knapping, back around 2006. That was around ten years ago. Also, there was this fellow named "Marty" who was quite against the idea. Eventually he came around, though.
The irony is that I also came around, because I discovered that my whole approach to flintknapping had been made in almost complete ignorance of critical evidence. My ignorance was a blindness. And, looking at the overwhelming evidence of a +10,000 year tradition is the cure.
Here is five years later. I am detaching a blade with a wooden punch:
https://youtu.be/jNpTqGfHWRk?list=UU-w49Lxzg-ee24ms6LBJdQQSo, this means that I know something about wooden batons, and about wooden punches.
Beyond that, here is probably a more aboriginally accurate use of a flaking process, involving a wooden punch:
This proves that I was experimenting with wooden batons about ten years ago, and I have been experimenting with wooden punches, over the last five years. So, no one can say that I do not have experience with batons.
So, why would I reject baton use? I don't "reject" it, even though I know that indirect percussion technology is infinitely better.
But, with regard to "aboriginal American" flintknapping, virtually all knowledgeable observers, informants, scientists, ethnographers, soldiers, etc, pointed to the use of various forms of indirect percussion, as a known stage in Native American lithic reduction.
The ORIGINAL understanding was that aboriginal American knappers frequently started out with direct hammerstone percussion, followed by finer indirect percussion, then followed by pressure flaking. Obviously, not all reduction followed this pattern. But, a great deal of it was believed to have followed this pattern. This was the predominant view in American archaeology, until probably the 1920's or 1930's. And, people did not hold this belief because of the work of Flint Jack, or some other European experimenter. There was simply too much evidence, going back to Catlin's account, published in the late 1860's - but probably witnessed between 1830 and 1840 - that pointed to sophisticated indirect percussion.
Also, the signs of battering, and other peculiarities, were noted by many dozens of independent archaeologists, working in different parts of the country, for maybe over one hundred years. Archaeological study did not do away with the idea. The study of archaeologists actually strengthened the idea.
The baton knapping idea was an alien idea imported from Europe. The more a person focuses on baton technology, the less they are focusing on aboriginal American technology. What the flintknapping community has engaged in is a matter of shunning known evidence. People give all of these reasons why they are not interested in actual evidence, and then they promote a view of which there never was any evidence. If two wrongs do not make something right, thousands of wrongs certainly do not make something right.
You wrote:
"Now if I am understanding your thought process correctly, you would say that since no white men ever saw any Native Americans using wood percussion knapping tools, and since no such tools have been found by archaeologists, that method of knapping quartzite is invalid, wasn't used, isn't "abo". Is that correct?"That is not the point. The point is that there is evidence of BETTER flaking technologies, than baton knapping. So, look at it this way, you could go from an alien European method, to a BETTER METHOD, if you can narrow down what that method might have been, based on the known evidence from the Americas. Then, at that point, you can hammer out all of the fine differences between the results of each method, and make a FAIR JUDGMENT. But, there is no fair judgment when forty years of promotion is given to an alien European idea, and forty years of zip goes to the evidence of Native American flintknapping. Once again, I am probably in a better position to give a fair judgment than anyone else, because I have worked with both technologies.
The reason that I know what I know is because I spent the last five years constantly studying every shred of evidence, pertaining to lithic technologies, used in both the historic era, and the prehistoric era. I also was very fortunate in that I got input from a world class professional Danish dagger replicator, before he died. Think about it. One of the best flintknappers on planet earth, changed his position, and concluded that I was on the right track, before he died, last year. He could have replicated anything. But, he chose Danish daggers because the pay was really high. Still, his real interest was paleo. And, he died before he was able to see most of the stuff that I can now produce. Still, he thought that I was on the right track, based on the overwhelming evidence that I presented. And, the evidence really represents the life works of other people who lived, and died, before I was ever born. Unfortunately, Philip Churchill is not longer with us, today.
The problem with people today is that they want to take an anti-evidential approach, and then make it up as they go along. That approach has never worked. And, the evidence from the Americas is so sophisticated that it will never work. That is why no one can figure out my outrepasse flaking, EVEN THOUGH I SHOW THE DEER TINE TOOL.
The longer this continues the greater my appreciation grows for Cushing, Holmes, and others, who made a very concerted effort at recovering the nearly lost flintknapping practices of the Native Americans. Decades of researchers were not content with sitting at home, and making it up as they went along.
Also, when I say that I give myself very little credit it is because I am conscious of the fact that I am standing on the shoulders of giants. I actually have a better understanding of some of the things that they documented, then maybe what they understood themselves. Still, they are the ones who collected the evidence. I am just the "lucky boy" who got to play with it, and unravel some of the meaning behind the evidence.
Anyway, I do not think that the term "abo" should be used loosely. It creates the impression that the use of any sort of stone, or organic material makes something "aboriginal". And, this is not true. The term "aboriginal" does not mean natural/organic material.
When flintknappers say "aboriginal" they are usually talking about "natural based" flintknapping, with regard to materials. To call the antler baton method an "aboriginal method" would be akin to calling it part of someone's culture. And, no scientist has ever demonstrated that flintknapping batons are a culturally predictable trait.
What flintknappers will say is that it can be "inferred" by flakes, and flake scars. This thinking is fallacious at heart, because you can not rule out unknown technology B, simply by demonstrating known technology A. It is possible that unknown technology B might do a better job than known technology A.
I can tell people how fast my ten speed goes, all day long. But, just because I am ignorant about combustion engines, and Nascar race cars, does not mean that my ten speed is the fastest vehicle on the planet. If I think so, it might just reflect my ignorance, especially if I have no way to know any better (or don't want to know any better).
If people want to make up flintknapping as they go along, I do not care. But, if they want to make up flintknapping, and then call it "aboriginal", that would be akin to me making up point types, and then calling them "aboriginal", when there might not be any evidence that the point type ever existed.
I hope that this makes my views clearer. I do not care how people flintknap. I do care when people start making claims about other people's culture, when those claims cannot be substantiated.
Also, I happen to think that it is in the best interest of the flintknapping community to man up to the evidence, grow a backbone, and tackle the evidence head on. The reason that really experienced archaeologists do not talk to flintknappers is because they already know that baton knapping, hammerstone flaking, and pressure flaking, cannot account for a lot of what they see. So, what is the point in talking to a "flintknapper"? And, who in his right mind is going to consult a copper percussion knapper? It is not happening.
My solution to all of this is simple: FOCUS ON THE EVIDENCE, in whatever shape or form it might exist in. This is what everyone else did, before people started claiming that they could "divine" the practice from flakes, and flake scars, alone. People have already completely lost sight of well documented evidence, that has been on the books for decades, if not longer.
My bid is to make flintknapping relevant again.
Ben
