Arrowheadology.com: Arrowheads, Indian Artifacts and Early Man

Scottsbluff Reduction Sequence

Posted on 05. Sep, 2009 by Shannon Graham in Flint Artifacts, Flint Knapping, Miscellaneous

A look at six stages of manufacture.

Many ancient sites are littered with thousands of flint flakes that are the result of the tool and projectile point manufacturing process. This lithic scatter is also known as flint knapping debitage or waste flakes.

These flakes range greatly in shape and size depending on how they were removed from the larger blade or core and at which particular stage. Flakes can be large pieces removed by strong percussion blows with a hammer stone or they could be smaller, narrow flakes removed by pressure flaking with an antler or bone.

Woody Blackwell demonstrated the various stages of projectile point manufacture at the 2009 GIRS show in Temple, Texas. Starting with tabular pieces of Pedernales chert from the Texas Hill Country, Blackwell knapped four Scottsbluff preforms, each in advancing stages of completion, and one complete Scottsbluff. For each stage Blackwell displays the flakes that were removed during the process from the previous stage.

It’s an interesting and educational study to see the different types of flakes removed for each stage. (Click each image to see a larger view.)

Pedernales Chert from the Texas Hill County was used for each piece.

Percussion blows to remove the cortex produce large flakes with the outer rind of the material visible on most pieces.

Carefully placed thinning strikes create smaller flakes, many of which show the platform that the knapper set up on the edge in order to remove the flake.

Additional thinning and shaping to create a triangular biface in the next two stages produces progressively smaller flakes.

The final stage which transforms the late stage preform into a final stage Scottsbluff removes very little in terms of width but creates hundreds of tiny waste flakes.

A special thanks to Leslie Pfeifer for permission to photograph and publish this display from the GIRS show. Also, check out Woody Blackwell’s creations.

Related Posts

1. The Mullins Texas Clovis Cache
2. Central Texas Clovis Cache
3. The Sun Sets on Temple.

Tags: arrowhead, Flint Knapping, primitive technology, scottsbluff