ABO techniques, processes and tools.

[Zuma]

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-ee24ms6LBJdQQ

So, 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
         

It is refreshing to see that you did not mention flakes curling
around the opposite edge. I guess the bogus Solutrean connection had not yet been published.
Zuma

[AncientTech]

I have been using wooden batons(billets ) since 1999. Others  have been doing it much longer,  when you and I(Ben) were still in diapers.I have not seen a Clovis hunter do it nor have I seen you do it.  You have shown pictures of an overshot and a flaker, not you doing it. Not the same.  I would ask you the same, Have you seen a Clovis hunter do it. The answer is no. So you have no more credibility than any one else. You are only inferring which is what we are all doing. It is the foundation of Archaeology and Anthropology, since none of us were there we can only infer from the evidence and the results of Experimental archaeology.

 The problem I see with Ben's theory is he is trying to apply his short peg punch hold it between your fingers, in his palm to everything. It does not and will not produce the results we see in  the materials used in the Northeast Archaic broadspear traditions. Wooden billets  do this very well where nothing else produces the same results. There is a finite list of material available to the Native Knappers. It had to be bone, stone , antler or wood. Technique is a different matter, multiple combinations of. The Archaic in the Midwest and West and South was different than in the Northeast. Same techniques will not apply. Different source material, different end product.

Pete Davis made no claim to have stumbled onto something and if you go back and read it Keith did not make the claim that Pete discovered anything. Pete merely brought it to the  front and it has caught on from his efforts to promote it. He and others are standing on the shoulders of others (Cresson, Callahan,Silsby, and others) who went years before on a quest to determine the methods used to work this gnarly rock found in the Northeast.   As was said nothing new to some of us. The difference I see is the ability to discuss techniques, methods etc. within that group, sharing ideas, respecting one anothers talent and opinions, and an interest in finding the answers and producing results, that match the record.

 All these pictures and remains are not suitable to produce the first stages of quarry production. Show me some tools from the The most recent round of pictures and archaeological remains I believe actually bolster Keith's theory that Ben is missing an entire tool set.quarry not a burial. Ben keeps asking, "Why can't you guys figure out how I am using the punch I keep showing you?"   Well there are only two ways it can be used, You are either hitting it on the end like a typical punch or you are hitting it on the side like a typical rocker punch. Can't see it being done any other way. How its being held does not really change the direction of force. Neither are new or  unique.

"I have not seen a Clovis hunter do it nor have I seen you do it.  You have shown pictures of an overshot and a flaker, not you doing it. Not the same.  I would ask you the same, Have you seen a Clovis hunter do it. The answer is no. So you have no more credibility than any one else. You are only inferring which is what we are all doing. It is the foundation of Archaeology and Anthropology, since none of us were there we can only infer from the evidence and the results of Experimental archaeology."

Since people here see fit to call technologies - of which we have zero evidence - "abo", I should fit right in calling the technology that I discovered tine-based Clovis overshot.  My tine base Clovis overshot is awesome.  It works on the first try, on many different materials.  And, it only requires a common deer tine.


"So you have no more credibility than any one else. You are only inferring which is what we are all doing. It is the foundation of Archaeology and Anthropology, since none of us were there we can only infer from the evidence and the results of Experimental archaeology."

Not true.  There is a difference between using a method that was known to have been used by Native American knappers, versus using a method that is cooked up in someone's garage.  I recognized the tine based overshot method in the very same records that I tried to get flintknappers to look at between 2010 and 2011.  It is unfortunate that people did not take the time to study those records.  But, it is their loss not mine.

"The problem I see with Ben's theory is he is trying to apply his short peg punch hold it between your fingers, in his palm to everything. It does not and will not produce the results we see in  the materials used in the Northeast Archaic broadspear traditions."

That is not an interpretation that I currently adhere to.  Still, a misguided view is better than no view at all. 

"Wooden billets  do this very well where nothing else produces the same results."

You don't know that "nothing else" produces the same results.  You would have to know every flintknapping possibility before you can make that claim.  And, no one on earth knows every possibility.

"Pete Davis made no claim to have stumbled onto something and if you go back and read it Keith did not make the claim that Pete discovered anything."

Well, I did discover something.  The very same records that no one wanted to look at, between 2010 and 2011, and onward actually contain the blueprint of sophisticated tine-based overshot flaking.  So, maybe Pete did not discover anything, but I have.  And, the profound part is that I endured years of continual naysaying, while the actual answer was within records that I was showing the naysayers.  Ha ha ha.  I found it. 

"The difference I see is the ability to discuss techniques, methods etc. within that group, sharing ideas, respecting one anothers talent and opinions, and an interest in finding the answers and producing results, that match the record."

Match the record - yes, like tine-based Clovis overshot.  Well, where was the discussion, and the sharing of ideas, in 2010, 2011, 2012, and onwards?  It makes a great story, though.  When certain people ask whether anyone knows about this stuff, I tell them that I spent years trying to get people to look at the evidence.  And, I was subject to ridicule, insults, name calling, straw man attacks, switch and bait tactics, I was told that I was wasting my time, the idea is a pipe dream, the list goes on.  And, five years later, I realized that tine based Clovis overshot was actually contained within the VERY RECORDS that I had tried to get "more knowledgeable" people to look at.  Fifteen minutes later, I pull a coast to coast flake, on a crudely made spearhead.  And, I immediately over ran the coast to coast flake, with a full blown outrepasse.  And, I did it with the very same information that all of you rejected over and over, these last five years.  Woo hoo!  I won!  It is not like you didn't see the info.  It was presented multiple times.  I found Clovis tine-based outrepasse in the very same records that everyone else openly rejected, and publicly repudiated.  Amazing!

"All these pictures and remains are not suitable to produce the first stages of quarry production. Show me some tools from the The most recent round of pictures and archaeological remains I believe actually bolster Keith's theory that Ben is missing an entire tool set.quarry not a burial."

Quarry reduction?  Ha ha ha.  You must be joking.  I never said that late stage overshot has anything to do with quarry reduction.  Ever hear of "hammerstones"?  Would you like photos of all my hammerstone overshot FAILURES?  Is this another switch and bait tactic?  I am missing a tool set, for quarries?  Ha ha ha.  Buckets of hammerstones are not enough?  Ha ha ha.  I cannot stop laughing.  I have bucket loads of hammerstones, and I am missing quarry tools?  Ha ha ha.  Is this for real?

"Ben keeps asking, "Why can't you guys figure out how I am using the punch I keep showing you?"   Well there are only two ways it can be used, You are either hitting it on the end like a typical punch or you are hitting it on the side like a typical rocker punch. Can't see it being done any other way. How its being held does not really change the direction of force. Neither are new or  unique."

No, that is not how the overshot is made.  And, if it was, you would have done it, by now.  Remember the photos that you had censored from the Paleoplanet forum?  They did not contain overshot, either.  Here I will refresh your memory.  There is not a single overshot on this piece:



I figured out the first 50% of the process, in 2012.  And, I figured out that last 50% of the process, in January of 2015.  And, I did it with information that was provided to possibly hundreds of flintknappers, between 2010, and 2011, and on.  It is clear that the loss is not mine.  The worst mistake that the flintknappers made was putting up all the resistance against well documented factual evidence.  It is not like I only know one thing.  I found out a lot of other stuff, on the way.  But, the tine based overshot, coast to coast flaking, and fluting, is a hallmark trait.  And, no one is going to recreate it with hammerstones, or batons. 

You can come up with any narrative that you want.  But, when the time is right, I am going to show other people things that no one has provided answers to, until now.   

   

[caveman2533]

What evidence do you have of a Clovis tine based tool kit

[Hummingbird Point]

At the risk of incurring all kinds of ribbing from Zuma next time I see him:

Ben said"

My bid is to make flintknapping relevant again.

Ben,

I'm ready too, let's go.  What's holding you back?  How does keeping the method secret accomplish that?  Doesn't it do the opposite?  You reference your previous work, and specifically mention the time frame 2010-2011.  If I am remembering correctly at the time you advocated the use of the short antler "drifts" as straight punches.  You may not realize it, but that method prior to you talking about it wasn't in common usage, and now 5 years later it is used, to one degree or another, by most "abo" knappers.  So for every guy that gave you sh*t about it, 10 others were in the background listening and learning.  (I was one of them, so thank you.)

So is this like some kind of "bad blood" or "rubbing your nose in it type of thing"?  Is this a matter of "Ha, ha, ha, I'm so smart, you're so dumb"?  If so, as I said many times before I'm here to learn, so stop the train, I'm getting off.  No disrespect intended, but I don't have time for that nonsense.

There are certain aspects of knapping, especially related to the paleo stuff, that I have been trying to figure out.  I have been in a dark room looking for a black cat only to come up at the end, time after time, with the conclusion that the cat was never in that room to begin with.  I think in the least you have found the right room.  I think it is possible you have found a "holy grail" of knapping that many great experimental knappers past and present have been looking for, but missed.   There's only one way to find that out.  What's holding you back?  What are you looking for from the knapping community that would cause you to deem us worthy? How do you make flintknapping relevant again by working in isolation?  If you do, in fact, want to work in isolation, and the flintknapping community is not worthy of your brilliance, why mention your discovery at all?

Daniel Boone is famous not so much for finding the Cumberland Gap -- no doubt any number of good looking white boys had found it before him -- but because he went back and told people about it, leading them into Kentucky and giving us the fastest Thoroughbreds, smoothest bourbon and tastiest fried chicken in the world.  To use your words, "man up", this is you Daniel Boone moment. 

Keith



Keith   

[mullet]

But, it's not the time, Grasshopper, the string he has everybody on is still long and nobody is smart enough to understand.