Knapping Glass into a Palaeolithic Handaxe with Experimental Archaeologist, Dr. James Dilley.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ก.ย. 2021
- Flintknapping is of course the process of flaking stone to make tools. The term flintknapping includes a wide variety of lithic types, not just flint. Obsidian, chert and other rocks can all be knapped like flint. But there is another material that can be flaked predictably to create a sharp edge: glass. We think of making shapes from glass by cutting or casting it, but not striking it. So here is one way of shaping glass using percussion.....
Filmed Edited & Produced by Emma Jones of ELWJ Media - www.elwjmedia.co.uk
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Mum: dont come near the the house there is glass on the floor
Meanwhile dad:
This is such a good way to really see what's going on in the block with each strike!
@Dooley Fussle-- I make telescope optics out of glass, and it is easily annealed to relieve internal stress. The secret formula I use is 60 hours per inch of thickness cooling from 550 deg C down to 350. Above 550 cool as fast as you like; the glass is not quite solid and will support no strss. Below 350 the glass will be stressed, but the stress is relieved when room temp equilibriun is reached, so cool as fast as you can without gracturing.
I have really enjoyed your videos. One thing I will say, you are very brave knapping in open toed shoes. I did that once with obisidian and had tiny shards all between my toes.
The original hazardous waste!
I don't wear shorts, but when doing jobs like this, I always make sure the bottom of the trousers ride over the top of my boots to shed any falling rubbish before it can get down into the boots. On bigger work, I wear hockey shin pads. I'm no wimp but I am type one diabetic so have to take special care not to get injuries to my lower leg and feet. Old fashioned gaiters would work well too.
this is the most pleasant 40 minutes I've spent in front of a computer screen that I can remember
ASMRchaeology 😁 as a lithics specialist who has never knapped I think I found my new favourite TH-cam channel. I need a knapping toolkit!
Tools:
Hard hammer
Soft hammer
Don't go to Home Depot, just pick the stones off the ground.
Awesome always loved the Kimberly heads and the Quarz crystal tools...
Seeing this, i just hope they had really good vacuum cleaners in the neolithic....
Absolutely wonderful! So great to see what we would have been doing in the Paleo: how long it takes, the sounds, the tool kit.
You are such a blessing to this community. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed watching!
Besutiful. Like watching a tree whittled down to a single toothpick
I have watched many of your videos, Dr., and to me, this is your finest. Your striking accuracy & control with abo tools is just phenomenal! The only problem I had watching this video was that my anxiety level and blood pressure kept rising as you neared the end, and continued striking. I kept thinking, "Stop, for God's sake, James! It's lovely now, so stop already"! Excellent work, Dr.
Why do I find this so fascinating? Beautiful work.
Yes! New video!
Outstanding!!!!
Wonderful work!
Nice catch😊 i bet for that split second your heart raced😋🙃🙃 and that tool is so pretty nice work mate😊
Thanks! The light really helped to show off the flaking ☺️
Good work. I confess I don't even like to knap obsidian anymore because the slivers turn invisible if you get one in you and have to be felt for with the tip of something when you dig them out. And you do have to dig them out...I've made a lot of points from TV screens, I actually learned to knap on that, the older screens are about 15-20mm thick.
After watching your video, I just had to have one of those glass hand axes for my office! I just ordered one from your website! Awesome work!
That was amazing. Thank you.
incredible. thanks for the video see you on the next one
Beautifully made!!! A pleasure to watch!!!
This is just the proper education that so many will brush off as useless and a waste of time, but in these times it will be the useless
Who will loose,, we are headed 2 steps back to hell and 1 step forward into the second Paleolithic, you better learn knapping 101 if you don't you just might end up someones cave honey.
Terrific, you do know what you're doing. Usually i wouldn't associate broken glass with sandals, shorts and a glove-less hand!
That's an awesome job!!
Seriously awesome video, love knapping ever since I found your channel.
Thanks! Glad to hear it ☺️
Lovely handax! I've been trying to learn this style as the "mother of all stone tools"! Where did you acquire that large block of glass? My local glass artists wouldn't sell or give me any of their glass as they said the heating and re-heating would put too much stress into it and it would likely break in unpredictable ways.
Must’ve been a treat to knapp the glass. Keep on coming back to this video because the whole process is impressive to watch as a knapper myself.
Beautiful Craftsmanship.
Brilliant thank you
I know absolutely nothing about knapping. Which is probably why i was so utterly surprised at how incredibly clean the glass broke apart.
Great job showing how to do this, it just gives me the shakes seeing you do it in sandals and cargo pants. I wear long pants when I'm doing obsidian, can't imagine doing it like this. I don't imagine that the block of glass was any too cheap either. Ever thought of doing a crimson colored axe head ? That would be something I would like to see you do. Thanks for the great video...!
Looklike colourless optical glass
Thanks!
excellent
Ahh, the sounds were lovely, ASMR for primitive skills nerds!
That's what we were aiming for 🤣 glad we succeeded!
Some of those reduction flakes show promise too! Nice axe!
I would really love to got some of these that are made out of the glass!!!
Fascinating! As for the finishing touches, I wonder if what has been discovered is more toward a many times retooled hand ax rather than the original construct. Just a thought…
beautifully done, but more of a challenge I bet without the opaqueness of obsidian and other materials, but you managed.
Thank you. Obsidian and glass are similar to knap but both are more fragile than flint ☺️
Five minutes in and I'm absolutely terrified of the beyond razor-sharp edges that the glass must be making with every strike and then it dawns on me, "Duh, the same thing happens with the flint. That's the whole point." And now I have to get over being an absolute numpty all this time.
Don't worry, it's's quite common that people underestimate just how sharp flint can be! 😅
Dude, thats a massive hunk of glass.
I have an exquisite little arrow head my daughter made at university. The thing is that it should have been a handaxe - as her Professor said to her at the time: "One of the main rules of flint knapping is to know when to stop knapping and when to start napping!"
Wouldn't it be great to have been at the dawn of history when one of our ancestors was sitting there on a log and thought:
I wonder what would happen if I hit THIS stone with THIS stone.
Oh!
WOW! . . . .
That looks absolutely awesome!
Would you use the pressure flaking to finish it off, especially when using thinner glass?
Not for a handaxe, but for tools like daggers or arrowheads I would use a pressure flaker.
My wife operates on eyes and, honestly, it's not far off. Any manual technique is pretty rough compared to the structure of an eye, but with good control/constraint and understanding of what materials do under certain stresses, very fine and precise surgery is possible.
I would have worn full face visor hope glass was correctly annealed
Anyone else mildly concerned about the shorts and flipflops? Or was I the only one fearing an accident? Beautiful handaxe though.
The leather leg covers are definitely an essential! It was also 30°C when we filmed
Nope. That’s my standard attire. I get small bleeders on my legs occasionally but they aren’t bothersome enough to make me change.
I knap wearing flipflops and only cut my feet occasionally
what did prehistoric man wear?
Very Nice! I wonder if you could have started with a smaller glass block, as the resultating axe is so much smaller in the end?
The right angled edges mean I have to detach a fair bit of material. If the starting block was lens shaped I would only need to remove a few flakes.
@AncientCraftUK Great to see another video from you. Quick question. During your experimental processes have you tried using a hand axe as a throwing weapon? And if so how effective is it? I ask as during some lectures by Prof Brian Fagan that I have been listening to he mentions its possible use as a throwing weapon as far back as Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus. My point in asking being. Would they be any more effective than throwing any normal stone as i find it strange that someone would throw an item they had spent so much effort in producing when a normal stone would likely prove just as effective.
They wouldn’t be terribly effective throwing implements, some experiments conducted years ago by Reading Uni found they only resulted in a sliced hand when launched
Looks more like a giant leaf shaped spear point
Finally a video that isn't sponsored by ridge wallet
I hope there was an off screen fan blowing dust away. Also fire starter !
Could he make a paleolithic lens fo fire starting?
I always tell my students when you’re knapping there will be blood!😅 Also remember glass is like obsidian it’s sharp enough to do eye surgery.
Eye surgery, on purpose OR on accident!
These videos would be so much better if James would interact with some of the excellent topical questions that the viewers have submitted. Without that, it is going to be hard to get people to like and subscribe
Where do you get chunks of glass like this?
ould you say that its easier with glass james? what with being able to see the cracks and faults develop within?
Beautiful glass hand axe. Of what use would it be other than to say, "I made that and it's pretty?" How many strikes on a one inch sapling would it survive?
I'm guessing zero! It's super pretty, though.
It’s wouldn’t be particularly effective for wood working due to its fragility. It would be a fine butchery tool though
It's really instructive to see just how many tiny glass fragments and how much glass dust break off as you're working. I think it's easier to see the same in chert or flint and just say "oh it's only dust" but really, it's not much different than these shards of glass. I'm not keen on breathing that in or getting it in my eyes.
No you don't want to inhale any kind of silica dust. I always recommend knapping of any kind outdoors or in a well ventilated place and to always wear the appropriate PPE (safety glasses, gloves and leather leg protection.)
Incredible talent! Except that wonderful hand axe was already in the big glass chunk.... all it needed was the good Doctor to remove the excess pieces of glass from it.... : )
How would one acquire such a block of glass, and what would one expect to pay for it?
That's beatiful! Is it usefull?
As a cutting/butchery tool - definitely!
How about a demonstration of it chopping? Very nice, and interesting job. thank You. I don't think flint, or glass knapping would have been my forte. I am sure it required a lot of patience, plus good eyes and steady hands. I did have steady hands, in my youth, but I don't think 1 out of 3 would be good enough.
It probably wouldn’t survive chopping wood, but then again handaxes were not made for this las they are primarily butchery tools. It would certainly work for dismembering a carcass
What type of gloves do you use to protect your hand when knapping? When can l purchase some from?
They are nothing special, I usually get mine from a garden center! Ideally you don't want gloves that are too thick to prevent you from loosing dexterity...
Amazon industrial grippy flexible etc
Where would be a good place to acquire glass for knapping. I have busted the bottom out of square liquor bottles and made points. I would love to get ahold of a cube like you have.
it would probably be easier to buy a piece of obsidian
Telescope mirror blanks and thick(over 20mm)green plate(soda)glass widely available
At least with glass you can see if there's any internal imperfections in the core before starting.
James, where could one get a block of glass like that?
You can just buy big glass stones originaly made for garden decoration... i just bought a 5kg box of glass stones in the size of 10-20cm and it works just fine
Love that you use all primitive tools but made me cringe seeing you wear flip flops with glass... Lol
Very nice work!!
How thick was the piece You started with? Was it easier to work with the glass or stone?
Only about 8cm thick. Glass is much more predictable than flint, but is much more fragile. You only need 50% of the power you’d use on flint
@ancientcraftUK That's what I was hoping. I do some glass work, and wanted to learn more.
So as a tool, how does this perform vs flint?
Much sharper! But also more fragile
Where can I get one of these
Via our web shop: www.ancientcraft.co.uk/prehistoric-replicas
The available stock is limited currently while we catch up on orders
Dr. James, the hammer you use on min 16:00 is a wood hammer?
No woodgrain, so fat antler I'd wagwr
moose antler billet
moose antler billet
Red deer antler hammer
Hope you wear a mask or have adequate airflow araw from the workpiece. Apparently you can be breathing in small glass dust in enclosed spaces resulting in silicosis of the lungs.
Bro do you even abraid
Second thought, is there any evidence that hand ax was ever been used as a digging tool?
it could definitely have been used that way and was very likely a "multitool"
Some may have, but in the rare instance wood survives at Palaeolithic sites, digging sticks have been found. Using them as digging tools would be a quick way of blunting their edges
Is it possible to just create flawless flint with science? Theres goota be tonnes of raw uselessly small glakes to use in your backyard as lone
I guess artificial flawless flint is technically glass. If you tried to melt flint you would end up smelting the silica from it (and was used as a method to make glass in the 18th/19th C)
@@ancientcraftUK interesting i love the idea of working with flint but hate the idea of depleting a natural rescource thats been ravaged for millions of years.
the sound is so low, can't hear your video. sorry.
FLIP FLOPS??!?!!
Omg this gives me anxiety
So many nappers....do any of these knappers actually attach their products to real arrows? They knapp as a hobby and have never made a real hunting bow. Knapp knapp... all to make videos.
I believe quite a few knappers make full arrows and provide arrowheads to hunters in the US who use them for actual hunting (we can’t do that in the UK). The closest I get is to making full arrows and using them for TV projects
you gotta be a troll