Flint knife

“ It is remarkable that many of the Danish flint knife-daggers, especially those which have been so long in use that their blades have been much diminished in size by having been frequently re-chipped, present at the end and sides of the handles precisely the same kind of worn surface. ”

“ In the third picture is shown a piece of flint that was doubtless chipped into this shape that it might be used as a knife.
I have found scores of such knives in the fields that extend along the little valley, and a few came to light in my search that afternoon in the brook-side sands and gravel. So, if this chipped flint is a knife, then, as in modern times, the children were whittlers.
fish-hooks.
Of course, our boys nowadays would be puzzled to cut a willow whistle or mend the baby’s go-cart with such a knife as this; but still, it will not do to despise stone cutlery. ”

“ The peat-bogs of Antwerp, in which were found a human frontal bone, characterised by its great thickness, and its small surface, have also furnished fine specimens of flint knives (fig. 123) , which are in no way inferior to the best of those discovered at Grand-Pressigny.
Fig. 123.—Flint Knife, from the Peat-bogs near Antwerp. On none of the instruments of bone or horn, of which we have been speaking, are to be found the designs which we have described as being the work of man during the reindeer epoch. The artistic instinct seems to have entirely vanished. ”

“ I have seen flint knives in outline very like Fig. 240 in the museums at Cracow, Moscow, and Kiev. Some are highly polished by friction and may have served as sickles.
It is difficult to assign any definite use to the British form of knife, but as the curvature is evidently intentional, and as probably it was more difficult to chip out such curved blades than it would have been to make them straight, there must have been some advantage resulting from the form. As both edges of the blade are sharp, it is hard to say whether the convex or concave edge was the principal object. ”

“ Man has reached the stage of culture when he could socket a stone into a wooden handle, and fix a flaked flint as a handled dagger or knife. The workmanship is superior to that shown in any of the stone utensils made by savage tribes of historic times. The manner of making flint implements appears to have been in all ages much the same. Flint from its mode of fracture is the only kind of stone which can be chipped or flaked into almost any shape, and thus forms the principal material of these earliest weapons. ”

“ Mon ́-hin Wa-ḳon ́-da, Mysterious Knife. From the White Rock the people went forth to wander over the earth. They thought to make for themselves a knife for ceremonial use. The Sho ́-ḳa went again and again to find the right kind of stone of which to make the knife. He brought home the red flint, the blue flint, the flint streaked with yellow, the black flint and the white flint, one after the other, each of which was rejected as being unfit for use by the little ones as a knife. ”

“ In time primitive peoples, including the Mound-builders and the Indians, came to make more pretentious knife-blades, like that shown as “D.”
Scrapers of various sorts were made from flint, and served many purposes. The simplest form, a mere flake of flint, is the top specimen in “A,” while an improved type, with notches for securing it to a handle is shown below it. They were used for scraping wood, bone and stone, in making tools and ornaments, and for removing the fat from skins, before tanning. ”

“ Sometimes the secondary working extends over part of both faces of the flake, the central ridge of which is still discernible. Canon Greenwell found a fine instrument of this kind (31/4 inches) , made from a ridged flake, with neat secondary chipping along both sides, and on both faces, with a burnt body, in a barrow on Sherburn Wold. [44] The flint itself is partially calcined. It is difficult to determine the claims of such an instrument to be regarded as a knife or as a lance-head. ”

“ In the olden times some people had flint lock pistols without barrels, which were used only to ignite punk for the purpose of fire-building. But when one starts a fire by means of flint and steel one's hands must act the part of the hammer, the back of one's knife may be the steel, then a piece of flint or a gritty rock and a piece of punk will produce the spark necessary to generate the flames. ”

“ The late Sir Edward Belcher showed me an Eskimo "flensing knife," from Icy Cape, hafted in much the same manner. The blade is an ovate piece of slate about 5 inches long, and is let into a handle made of several pieces of wood, extending along nearly half the circumference, and secured together by resin. Other specimens of the same kind are in the British Museum, and in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen. The stone blades are more like the flat Picts' [156] knives, such as Fig. 263, than ordinary flint flakes. ”

“ In all the other places where flint implements have occurred they have been very rare (except perhaps at Hoxne) , and though the ascertained mammalian fauna is not everywhere quite so restricted as at St. Acheul, still very few small animals have as yet occurred.
It is useless to speculate as to the use made of these venerable weapons. Almost as well might we ask to what would they not be applied. Infinite as are our instruments, who would attempt even at present to say what was the use of a knife. But the primitive savage had no such choice of tools ”

“ Hold the knife about six inches above at an angle of about forty-five degrees from the flint, turn your knife so that the edge of the back of the blade will strike, then come down at an angle about thirty-five degrees with a sharp scraping blow. This should send the spark into the punk at the first or second blow. Now blow the punk until it is all aglow and you are ready to set your tinder afire. Push the punk into the middle of a handful of tinder and blow it until it is aflame, and the deed is done! ”

“ The ancient workman had his knife, saw, adze, chisel, drill, and scraper,—or plane, as we may term it,—all made of flint. The worn and triturated edges of many of those flint-tools show abundant evidence of their use in fashioning some hard substance. ”

“ A sharpened flint serves as a knife; attached to a wooden handle, it becomes a spear; projected from a bow-string, it is an arrow. Thus, along lines of very gradual ascent, all the complicated equipment of home and chase and war was slowly acquired by the constant search for better means with which to accomplish necessary ends. ”

“ With the above-mentioned articles were numerous fragments of calcined flint, and amongst the soil of the barrow two rude instruments of flint.
At eastern (p. 73) , in one part of the mound, an instrument was found, with a fine spear-head of flint, and a small arrow-head of the same. In other parts, but in apparently undisturbed earth, a circular instrument, and various chippings of flint, and the handle of a knife of stag's horn, riveted in the usual way on to the steel. ”

“ Some curved knives of polished slate, about 5 inches long, notched at the base as if for suspension by means of a string, have been found in Norway. Small blades of chipped flint with a neck for the same purpose are not uncommon in Japan, and occur more rarely in Russia. [164] In the Greenwell Collection is preserved a curved knife of slate sharpened on the concave side, found in Antrim. ”

“ Nearly similar forms occur in North America. A peculiar knife, with a rectangular handle, much like a common table-knife, has been found in the Lake Settlement of Inkwyl. [104]
A North American knife, [105] with a somewhat similar handle, has a curved blade very thick at the back.
To return to the implements made of flint. Those which I have next to describe have been termed spear-heads, lance-heads, knives, and daggers. ”

“ Fr. canif is also of Teutonic origin) , a small cutting instrument, with the blade either fixed to the handle or fastened with a hinge so as to clasp into the handle (see Cutlery) . For the knives chipped from flint by prehistoric man see Archaeology and Flint Implements. ”

“ Hearing the approach of what he judged to be a large animal by the noise of its movement through the cane, he held his rifle ready for instant use, and drew from its sheath a long and sharp knife, which he always wore in his belt. He determined to try the efficacy of his rifle first. As the animal came in sight it proved to be a she bear. They are exceedingly ferocious at all times, and their attack is dangerous and often fatal ”

“ Butter that has been thoroughly worked, and perfectly freed from butter-milk, is of a firm and waxy consistence, so as scarcely to dim the polish of the blade of a knife thrust into it, leaving upon it only a slight dew as it is withdrawn. ”

“ The under side of these flint knives is always smooth, and a trifle arched or curved; evidently arising from the conchoidal fracture of the flint. Flints of this form have very probably been used as arrow- or lance-heads. The second general form of flints have doubtless been used as boring tools: they are distinguished from those last mentioned by having one end decidedly blunt, instead of being chisel-shaped and sharp (Plate I. fig. 4) . At all events, I have been able with the greatest ease to bore nearly circular holes in stag's-horn with similar pointed flints. ”

“ It was well for them that they were more athletic than the savages, equally capable of endurance, and alike incapable of betraying groans, fear, or even marks of regret in their countenance. They knew enough of savage modes to beware that the least indications of weariness, and inability to proceed, would have brought the tomahawk and scalping-knife upon their skulls—weapons with which they were thus early supplied from Detroit. ”

“ The flint knives, or "flakes," simple as their forms appear, are always the work of man. To make one, the flint must he held firmly, and then a considerable force must he applied, either by pressure or by blows, repeated three or four times, but at least three, and given in certain slightly different directions, with a certain definite force; these conditions could scarcely occur by accident, so that, simple as it may seem to the untrained eye, a flint flake is to the antiquary as sure a trace of man as the footprint in the sand was to Robinson Crusoe. ”

“ In Egypt, associated with other objects betokening a considerable civilization, have been found several thin blades of flint, of much the same character as the highly-finished European specimens. A magnificent lance-head (141/2 inches) has been presented to the Ashmolean Museum by Prof. Flinders Petrie [140] . It is delicately serrated along the edges for most of its length. A smaller blade is more leaf-shaped and minutely serrated all round. Another appears to have been hafted as a dagger. In my own collection is a leaf-shaped blade 7 inches long, most delicately made and serrated. ”

“ The tools include chisels, borers, knives, saws and axes, but the finest workmanship seems to have been reserved for weapons. Arrow-heads and spear-points of flint have chipped blades of marvellous fineness and symmetry. Daggers with handle and blade all made of one piece of flint are characteristic of the Northern Stone Age, and show how much weight was laid on ornamental appearance, since wooden handles would have been equally effective and far less troublesome to make. ”

“ These flints are wrought into shape in precisely the same manner as gun-flints, and it seems possible that the trade of chipping flint into forms adapted to be used with steel for striking a light may be of considerable antiquity, and that the manufacture of gun-flints ought consequently to be regarded as only a modification and extension of a pre-existing art, closely allied with the facing and squaring of flints for architectural purposes, which reached great perfection at an early period. ”

“ But the best flint knives of the early period—dating to just a little before the time of the Ist Dynasty, when flint-working had attained its apogee, and copper had just begun to be used—are undoubtedly the most remarkable stone weapons ever made in the world. The grace and utility of the form, the delicacy of the fluted chipping on the side, and the minute care with which the tiny serrations of the cutting edge, serrations so small that often they can hardly be seen with the naked eye, are made, can certainly not be parallelled elsewhere. ”

“ These splinters are afterwards shaped, by placing them upon a sharp iron instrument, and then giving them repeatedly small blows with a mallet. During the whole operation the workman holds the stone in his hand, or merely supports it on his knee: and the operation is so simple, that a good workman has no difficulty in making 1500 flints in a day. The manufacture of gun-flints is chiefly confined to England, and two or three departments in France. In Prussia an attempt was once made to substitute a kind of earthenware or porcelain for flint ”

“ The number of the flint implements is computed at above fourteen hundred in an area of fourteen miles in length and half a mile in breadth. They are of the rudest nature, as if formed by a people in the most degraded state of barbarism. Some are mere flakes of flint, apparently used for knives or arrow-heads ”

“ If the axe thickened rapidly from the edge and was somewhat like a wedge, it was a good remedy against the brittleness of the flint, its great defect; and he put the more strength into the blow. The extreme hardness of flint made polishing very difficult. Most utensils of daily use were not polished at all. Many of the beautiful daggers, genuine works of art, were finished by a uniform, fine flaking down to the close of the period. Flint implements were not polished in Italy, Greece, Spain, and large parts of eastern Europe;97 they increase in abundance in Scandinavia and England. ”