How to Identify Good Rocks for Flintknapping Arrowheads
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ธ.ค. 2020
- This video shows what to look for when hunting for good rocks to flintknap into arrowheads and other stone tools. Not all areas have good rock, so do some research and put some time in looking around. For those that would like to purchase good rocks that are heat treated and ready to knap, you can find them at gillsprimitivearchery.com/
To find the video on heat treating rock, click this link. • Flint Knapping - Heat ... - บันเทิง
"Getting harder and harder to come across because is everything is private land" that one hit home Ryan
*Capitalism*
@@PotionsMaster666 Wrlcome to nordic countries where capitalism meets high taxes and all mens rights.
just ask permission, most people say yes..... at least in the northeast here
Maybe it's where I live but I can go to any river or stream bed, or road cut and find it everywhere. I do live directly at the bottom of the Edward's plateu drainage though.
But those people pay for the land, they should have the right to keep it. You will find if you ask nicely, even offer to pay, most land owners are amenable to you clearing rocks from their land lol.
I know this is old video, but the dumbest questions are the ones not asked! With that being said. I'm not into napping (other then the kind on my couch) "yet", but sounds interesting to try! I have acquired a source for big chunks of soda bottle glass from where the bottles are made. Some weigh up to 1-2 #s. I got them for the blue green color. Would this make good napping material? BTW I enjoy the videos!
There is no good knapping rock local to me, natives here used petrified wood. Its so incredibly hard to work with, I have immense respect for the people who made the petrified wood points ive found.
This guy has taught me more than the teachers in my school has ever taught anyone
just saw this comment a year late. Thank you very much. Very glad I was able to teach or inspire!
I'm glad young bucks are paying attention to men like him. Watch and learn.
I misread the title as identifying kidnapping rocks. Ok now you have my attention 😂😂😂. Oh knapping now it makes more sense.
One of the greatest gifts man can give to man is passing on knowledge and you have given alot lot of gifts
Here in north-central Texas, we have a lot of high-quality chert. The outside of the rock is generally yellow with a dark to translucent crystal interior. The flaws in the crystal are infrequent with many rocks producing more than enough flawless crystal to make a good point.
Very old post but if you're still following this channel, where abouts in N. Central Tx are you looking in? I'm just trying to get started and live in the same general area.
@@cprpottsville Check local creeks/rivers, see what you find then source them farther upstream if you want to find it in formation
Hello Ryan - I have gotten to know you from the past few years at the Silver River Knap-in , Ocala, Fl. and I am a big fan of all your videos. You are a very good educator and fortunate to be such a skilled craftsman. I have learned a lot - thanks.
Hey Ryan, I just wanted to say thanks for making these videos. My dad and grandpa were very knowledgeable on these subjects with my grandpa even having a large exhibit of native artifacts donated to a museum. Anyways, I regret not asking them to teach me how to knap stones and make bows, etc. They are both passed now so I will never be able to learn from them, but it offers some comfort that I can learn from you.
I live in the Flinthills of central US. The rock is usually a dark grey with little circular spots throughout. Most of the arrowheads I've found are a creamy white or pink. I find very few grey ones. Once I found an obsidian which shows just how far they traded.
To put into perspective your comment on the trading napable rock. I live on an island off the coast of Alaska in the Pacific ocean with no chert or napable rock. My island is made of shale yet there are napped chert artifacts here. The ancestors of my island would kayak more than 30 miles one way on open ocean in the Shelikoff strait to trade and obtain resources(this does not include the many miles it takes just to get out of the bays where they lived).
I have also been told obsidian artifacts have been found in New York, the material for which was quarried in Central Oregon.
Very cool
great timing, I walked the river this morning looking for flint type rocks to knap
Been waiting for this video
Thanks for the much needed information, Ryan!👍
Great stuff man, glad to see another video
Thank you for this valuable bit of information. Knapping is truly a lost art.
Excellent video!
Thank you for this. Worldbuilding/game designing, and this helps a ton.
Also, I noticed a lot of these are the same rocks that don't require transition metals in their formation. This is perfect, because I'm designing a world without "combat metals", and this allows me to create flintknapping without adding sources of metals such as aluminum and iron!
How’s your progress?
@@vandalianproductions Actually have a solid concept of progression of technologies for this world. A lot of stuff ends up being plastics and petroleum-based products. Age of Magic and Age of Plastic replace the Bronze Age, but postponed. A lot of "technology" like concrete, aqueducts, and things made from mineral construction are a lot "earlier" in the timeline, as is boating and woodworks. But that's because it takes longer to harness magic and plastics than it did bronze.
This was really fun to watch! I am not into primitive hunting yet, but I used to be really into hunting for native American artifacts when I lived in Georgia. I'm guessing based on what you are saying there must have been a great deal of rock trade in the area I'm from. I've seen agatized coral and several other types of materials used all in the same sites!
WOW awesome information thank you!
.Excellent my friend, generally I look for it in the same places that I look for arrowheads. All around there are large flakes or rocks that they left themselves.
Ive been over quite a bit of georgia and there is a lot of good rock hounding to do in the blue ridge mountains will edit to say not specifically for knapping but in general. Lots of beautiful specimens
I'm about to start knapping so Ive been looking into this stuff. Appreciate all the good info man. In the KC area I mostly see winterset chert. It can turn from grayish/tan to dark black with white-grey bands or even dark red after heat treatment. Has neat fusulinid fossils in it too. It's really a pretty transformation. Unfortunately it's not a very easy rock to work with I've heard. Small nodes and fractures easy I've heard. I'll have to see for myself.
This is a great video. I learned a lot from this and it has even sparked more interest for me in napping. Thank you for the video and for sharing your thoughts, ideas and experience with us. Subbed.
Thanks. That answered my questions about usable rock for Knapping.
Nice examples thank you
I’ve seen the video when im started with flintknapping and now, the funny idea with finding high silica not knappable stone and try to make melt it to make something knappable seems like good experiment
Great video. Thank you, I always wondered
I love these primitive videos man!
Thank U so much for the advice
I see that really black flint everywhere where I live in the uk. they’re awesome for skimming (bouncing stones of water). Im going to try and learn to nap I’ll be collecting some with the boy tomorrow 👍
Very informative, Thanks
this was exactly the vid i was looking for
thank you so much, man. just discovered your channel and website, this is awesome resources! inspired me to learn a new skill - i'm heading out right now to scout an area and hopefully find some rocks. will update back here soon
wow. let me just say, that was a lot easier than i expected!
i grabbed my longboard, bought some supplies and traversed to the nearby river i live close to. everything was coated in a layer of dirt, so i only had the texture of the rock to go by, the color of everything was the same dusty brown/grey. despite this, within less than 5 minutes i had found a softer, sparkly quarty red rock that split nicely despite feeling grainy and was holding my first knapped piece. i continued to practice knocking pieces off my host rock and just getting used to the motions.
i had found some driftwood and set up a bench along a larger volcanic rock, cleared a small area and made a sand pit so any shards that fell/shot off could be retrieved. eventually, the rock i was using (just a common black river rock here) to knap broke and held somewhat similiar edges, so i grabbed another and started knapping this one. it broke like expected, but into much larger, unusable pieces. the rock was too brittle to be worked. nothing like the clean flakes from the first one. inspired by this however, i went on the search again, and found another black river rock, the same like as the one i was working a second ago, except muuuuch darker and really smooth. this one was harder to work because it was so small, and i found that it really helps when you're not using a huge knapping rock! size doesn't really matter, it's just the angle and force of which it makes contact w/ the rock.
after downgrading to a smaller knapping rock, i managed to start chipping off the harder rounded exterior of this black river stone and producing sizable flakes, and these blew me away! by far the sharpest flakes i had produced so far, and none of these rocks were even close to as glassy as the ones you had demonstrated in this video, but still had a SHARP cutting edge! i was playing with one of these black pieces and managed to slice my thumb hahaha.
all in all, a good experience and i thank you! i saved a collection of usable pieces and the host rocks. i'm excited to learn how i can work these further.
When you assume...
Thanks for taking time for educating us😎👍
The green obsidian is the stuff that gets the love from spiritual types.
NM. has some cool rocks😎👍
😎👍❤🖖
Very informative thanks
Dude you are sic with it for posting this video and tyvm good looking out seriously
Thank you this was really helpful
I’ve been watching your videos for a long long time and seen a lot of them. Ive always wanted to build my own recurve which I am doing this year. Next step is flint napping figured I’d have to buy rock, you have no idea how excited I was when I heard Edwards l plateau... I can’t get any more directly in the middle of it here in TX.
Very lucky
I'm just looking to get started, thanks this video is great
excellent, best of luck and enjoy your knapping journey!
Man thank you so much for this info
Amazing content
I belive that every school should teach things like this
Lowkey I think schools should have classes for specific professions like craftsmanship, medicines, and cooking, but WITHOUT new technology, only using older things
Very informative...subbed.
nice video one thing you might mention do not heat treat in the kitchen stove, rock might contain mercy, arsnic or other nasty stuff be careful always heat treat outside and not in a pan you plan on eating out of. good luck happy knapping
Ryan, I just want to thank you. I have tried making about 10 board bows and only 2 work. I cut out a stave after watching a bunch of your videos and the very first try at a primitive bow turned out. Thank you for all the teaching you have done. I find nothing more satisfying than shooting equipment that I have made!
Yeah I’ve given up making board bows. I’ve ended up just taking a thick and flexible branch and putting a string on it. So far my max poundage for one of these bows is 55 pounds
Board bows can be hit and miss. Cutting your own wood in its natural form is way better. Plus there’s usually better species growing around you than the very few crap generic species at the store.
@@MustObeyTheRules Since I wrote that I have moved back to Ohio where I am from. There is fresh cut Osage on one of the local highways. Straight as an arrow. Been trying to find out who owns the land right there to see if I can get some.
@@kborak that’s awesome. There’s all kinds of Osage to be had in Ohio. You’ll get your hands on some for sure if you ask some people. My bet is they’re posts that you saw laying beside the highway. Lots of people still use and install Osage fence posts to this day. They last for century’s.
@@MustObeyTheRules Lucky for me they were cut by ODOT. Just, trying to find the land owner is a pain lol.
I live in the Texas hill country and there's a creek down the street from my house and it runs 4 miles. I've got an UNLIMITED supply of flint lol I found my first arrowhead not long ago and it set off the bug lol I'm addicted
South of Tampa is the land of sand.good vid Ryan hope to see ya one of these days
I know the pain. I used to live in Wilmington, NC and there was no natural sources of knappable rock. Until I found out that the trading ships used to use flint as ballast. They would dump it near the mouth of the Cape Fear River so they could take on a load before heading back to jolly old England.
I'm in wilm area can u give me any pointers on where to find the English ballist
@Charles Millson You would need to walk both sides of the river bank between Wilmington and South Port. I walked on the buffer zone near Carolina Beach but that was before the military closed off access to the public. There is also rhyolite in the Asheboro area. There are several people that sell it online. But rhyolite is extremely tough and not very easy to knap compared to flint or obsidian. Hope this helps.
Learned so much from you, Ryan! Thank you! Now I have an idea of what to look for now. Instant Sub, I want to learn more from you.
People have been teaching this stuff from word-to-mouth for hundreds of thousands of years and now it’s on TH-cam
I live in upstate South Carolina. I’m a displaced Blackfoot. We have plenty of obsidian and other good rocks here if you know what to look for. Especially in streams.
THANK YOU.
Great video very informational thank you very much Gene Gorringe Mi 👍✌️🇺🇲🇬🇧
I wish I had started Knapping while I lived in AZ. Good rocks everywhere. Here in KY there is a lot of good stone but it is so much harder to find.
I live along the river in Putnam County and occasionally you can find good knapping rocks, but that is rare.
Excelent video
I live next to a creek right on top of the ridge line in NW Ga and I make tons of arrowheads out of many different types of rocks =)
Come on folks if you watch his video give him a like a thumbs-up subscribe to his channel. I have nothing to do with him. but the knowledge he shares. Is insurmountable. He's part of our tribe for sure
Good stuff
I saw film of an Australian hunter on youtube who took a big flake off of a rock , it was kind of pointed, he didn't knapp it at all, he attached it to his spear and killed a wallaby. It made me interested in knapping.
That was awesome! Hot dang, love that piece from Pasco! How about the stuff up in Brookville?
Looks like I’m going to have to go to Texas and get some good rock. I mean I live in Arkansas next to some glacial creeks and was at one time navigated by early Natives. They used some very gritty stone and some flint. Most of their tools such as Adze, and Tomahawks are the gritty type of stone, but I do have flint/chert tools also of the same style
The Carolina slate belt has some really good stone. higher quality slate in and of itself can make great tools but the good stuff is the rock that looks like novaculite. from what I figured out it basically is Novaculite but it's not because it was formed from slate instead of chert.
I live along the White River basin. We had the Delaware and Hopi. We've got the orange flint. I'm certain we have chert but I'm not as familiar with it.
I have seen it in almost grey blue with white cortex , brown tan , and black . They are all over the hill sides and creeks .
I found a huge flint nodule in my backyard once when I was a kid and couldn't figure out what it was for a long time.
There’s not really any naturally occurring chert where I am, but there are flakes and pieces that natives used that looks to be heat treated if I had to guess. It’s very waxy looking and has pretty vibrant reds,pinks, purples, and black. The colors seem to be in layers, but I have no idea where it comes from. I’m pretty sure they had to travel to get it.
i remember sending you a photo of some quartz that I tought It was some flint
Where I live there's flint everywhere. There's houses, walls, castles, prisons built from it. Beaches full of the stuff. Best stuff is deep in the chalk. I live in England on the south coast.
Any body know any good rocks in iowa or the midwest
Lucky you, the flint mines there are amazing. I watched Will Lord go there and retrieve a piece. With permission of course.
I believe many arrows and spears were simple sharpened wooden shafts hardened over the flame. I have shot wood pointed arrows into a dead pig and they penetrated surprisingly deep. Love your channel, just found it last week, subscribed and been bing watching! Thank you!
A well sharpened stick does penetrate deep indeed since they're so thin and aerodynamic, but a broader cutting head will almost always kill faster with the same hit, reducing the chances of your prey running away so far you can't find them. With a sharp stick that essentially blocks it's own wound too, it's gonna be hard to track down your prey with such a small blood trail.
@@Ironpine27 wouldn’t just splitting the head into more heads increase the amount of blood or you could make the tip break off easily and that would allow more blood to flow out
@@jpthepug3126 Yes, there were in fact spears and atlats with detachable heads, although mostly to preserve the head instead of breaking the entire thing if the shaft is broken. Now making multiple heads is an interesting idea, but it would split the energy between each head, reducing penetration drastically. This is why multi-pronged heads are often seen on fishing spears, and small game arrows, but pretty much never on arrows and spears intended for bigger game.
@@Ironpine27 what about a spear/arrow with a thin rectangular hole carved from the head to the tail with some “pillars” that helps the arrows/spears not break
@@Ironpine27 actually you know what I’m going to design a arrow that is wooden and maximum blood loss
Yeah I live on the east coast of S.C. so no rocks . I have found old stone points in fields and disturbed areas and have always assumed that points or stone had been traded from over the mountains.
Okay. Makes sense. I see boxes of rock for sale and I've always thought "Why??" I've lived in the Texas hill country my whole life. It's literally everywhere.
I live in a place called sand mountain, so finding knapping flint is act of God.
I'm on Maryland eastern shore , the only stone got here on a truck
There’s a place in Death Valley called Crater Sulphur Mine that has a ton of jasper
Shale is quite popular in western ny
Nice
I’m screwed. I live in central NC. Most of the natives in this area used Rhyolite but apparently it’s getting harder to find. I’m still holding out hope I can find a honey hole someday. Until then I have to stick to the beer bottles I find and rock I buy.
do u go to a local knap in? the people at knap ins can help for locating stone but take it with a grain of salt because nobody is going to tell u where they get their best rock but it always good to explore. try going to camp sites or hiking trails near the mountains or hell flank the out skirts of marrow mountain to see if the old dudes left anything. ive found my best rock at public campsites.
@@seanarthur2001 Nothing like nosing around old campfires looking for knappable rocks 👍🤣
I was in Morrow Mountain State Park a number of years back, and the ground is littered with Rhyolite flakes. Never seen anything like it. Don't let the park wardens catch you picking it up to take home. Apparently that's a no no.
Florida is filled with usable beer bottles (except Bud Light).
I know this video is old, but I have two quick questions. Hopefully you'll see this.
Is there any specific way to make the first break on a rock? Something similar to needing a good shelf to flake?
Secondly, I have several century old glass dump sites, and I've seen videos of guys knapping glass jar and bottle bottoms, which they recommend for cheap easy practice. Is that something you have any feelings about one way or the other, and would the techniques be the same (I'm assuming so)? I potentially have an endless supply of glass, of different colors, shapes, and sizes, and I'm wondering if it's worth trying.
Im gonna go to turner falls in Oklahoma tomorrow, the only rocks near where I live (around Dayton tx) are on the road, ugly, and I highly doubt work for knapping. I want to learn flint knapping so hopefully I can gather a nice amount of rocks at turner falls.
Wish me luck lads
Can you do a quiver build video if there isn’t already one
Where i live in england you see this "perfect" rock all the time, i got tons of it in our nearby park and in my garden so i consider myself very lucky
I got excited when he said North Carolina of course we are the area with no rock yay for us
This video is so great! I live on the westcoast BC and I'm looking for some knappable rock. Everywhere I look online people say that there's no flint or anything around, but it's near the fault line so there should be some igneous stuff right?
There is quite a bit of jasper in that area. And quartz / agate too.
You should make more small game videos like the rabbit one
I live in east coast. Found this hudeg piece of obsidan. Thought i kind of worry of cutting myself knapping it as a beginner
I live on the Edwards Plateau. I see them everywhere.
Pertinales river is only 30 min away . Also pertinales points are found where I live . These areas are found even in recently developed areas in suburban neighborhoods.
I ordered a large box of the coral like 4 weeks ago idk if I messed up or it’s just taking a long time. Tim Hurd
I heard that Chinesium does wonders
since the pine comb ike n bad of paper, i found a rock that actually has spirals like a pine comb. and coral fossil i think. thank you
Hey I don’t know if you reply or not but I wanted to ask, when you first started flintknapping how long did it take you to make your first decent arrow head ?
I live in Missouri is the Flint in our creeks knappable? Does it have to be heat treated? I know where there's several ancient Flint mines but it's too far for me these days. Thank you I really enjoy your videos you're awesome
Some creeks in Missouri have incredible flint stones for kidnapping. Where I live in S.E Missouri, not so much.
I live in AZ in Phoenix and mainly use glass but u know anywhere I can get Flint or obsidian, maybe some chert?
❤
I have a brown rock that has the smooth glassy texture on the inside I didn't break it open because it already had a peace broken off that's how I knew but idk if it'll work?
Do you think it will? I was planning on making it into a hatchet because it has a sharp edge for that but I wanna make this instead!
We have really goodflin here in Norfolk UK, it's really chalky here and the ground is saturated in flint in amongst the layers of clay and chalk, dunno if there's a relation between chalk and flint
I'm in Eastern Kentucky and can find obsidian near Civil War sites do to forages making Canon balls.
Shout out to the squirrels in the background
I’ve gone through most of your videos and I haven’t seen you address that mysterious Native artifact...the bannerstone. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it’s usage and on the the purpose of other related artifacts like the boatstone.
I am pretty sure I talked about it in one of my advanced atlatl videos.
@@huntprimitive9918 Not a good response. I would think you'd keep a content record of your videos and be able to point the reader in a better direction.
@@richardwiley5933 Thats asking alot of a guy who gives out free information to all who wish to seek it, its not like he is charging you, just go find it
You ever use flint from southern Illinois. We got some nice stuff.