The story of stone age man’s use of flint Written and illustrated by Olivia Pye

Early man living in the South and West of England during the Stone Age had easy access to flint as a material to create tools from. There is a wealth of evidence that flint knapping (the process of fashioning tools out of flint) was widely used in these areas during Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic times (Turner, 2013)

The earliest tools are simple versions of the rock found naturally which were simply cracked to create sharp edges to use for cutting and scraping. These tools are called Eoliths and are relatively easy to manufacture (Turner, 2013). The first recorded ‘man-made’ tools are Choppers (also known as pebble and cobble tools) and Protoaxes which can be dated to the Palaeolithic period (Whittaker, 1994).

Paleolithic Chopper Handaxes These tools were not advanced enough to use for killing prey but they enabled hunters to cut and remove the skin and bones from animals which had already been killed by larger animals such as lions. They were made by bashing pebbles against flint rock to create ‘flakes’ which had sharp edges. Once they had these simple tools it meant they could make other tools by carving wood (Blumenschine and Cavallo, 1992). Handaxes

Neolithic Arrows, spear heads and harpoons Tools had become more advanced by the Neolithic period which is when more intricately carved shapes such as arrows are dated to. Stone age glue was made out of pine resin, beeswax and charcoal which when mixed together created a substance sticky enough to attach the flint arrow heads to long pieces of wood.

The development of more sophisticated stone tools enabled man to hunt animals for food more effectively which was vital to their survival. Arrow heads and spears meant that they could strike large animals from a distance and avoid being hurt. Evidence suggests that flint was not only used to kill animals for food. They were able to cut their skin and use it to make clothes and bags as well as carving bone into tools, jewellery and instruments (Bbc.co.uk, 2015).

Sources used to support this post: Bbc.co.uk. (2015). BBC Bitesize - KS2 History - How was flint used in the Stone Age?. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/zsqdq6f [Accessed 12 Apr. 2017]. Blumenschine, R.J. and Cavallo, J.A. (1992) "Scavenging and human evolution," Scientific American, 267(4), pp. 90-96. doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican1092-90. King, H. (2017). Uses of Flint | Tools, weapons, fire starters, gemstones. [online] Geology.com. Available at: http://geology.com/rocks/flint.shtml [Accessed 12 Apr. 2017]. Turner, R. (2013) Flint Knapping: A guide to making your own stone age Toolkit. United Kingdom: The History Press. Whittaker, J.C. (1994) Flintknapping: Making and understanding stone tools. Austin: University of Texas Press. The End