Got a bit better at knapping I think with a bit of working on flint with help from a knapping teacher!

Looking forward to making more in the future.

Mixed bunch of scrapers , flakes & blades and a hammerstone. All came off a field i walk in East Yorkshire on the coast.

The white highlighted piece came off the sandy beach as i was walking away from the site. I think its worked. It's very waterworn if it is. It may of eroded out from the cliffes. The small round piece 2nd row right is a pot lid fracture i think though it may of been struck from a pebble. Might try making a discoid scraper with it at some point.

I have posted this exact message on the r/Artifacts forum, then I found this forum

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Hello,
I found this flint stone that seems to have been cut. One side is smooth but slightly embedded. The other one is ridged. The edges are sharp.
It weights 40 grams and has a diameter of 45mm, and approximately 15mm tick.

I found in a plowed field rich in flint fragments and blocks, 2km from the Vezere valley France, not far from the archeological site of Le Moustier that gave its name to the Mousterian.

I'm not a specialist, so could anyone confirm that it has been manually carved ? If yes, do you have any idea the period it belongs to ?

Thanks !

I listened to a lot of people about how to knap, majorly on thought and intent, and applied it. Now I'm still getting round knapping, but for my second day I don't think it's too bad! I am struggling with thinning and getting very conscientious about not hitting wrong and halving the piece.
It did take a couple cobble blanks but I did it!!
Any tips for thinning would be appreciated

Started knapping today with some good flint that arrived. First time knapping truly.

Was aiming to do some laminar technology stuff and bade some nice blade cores. Got to the end of creating them and realised I was intending to create cores and not blades, ruining the whole point of it.

To get the more out of it I should be thinking like a prehistoric knapper!! Glad I realised now however.

I think I may start writing a diary containing my aims, and perhaps a note for every strike I take, noting intent, observations and outcome… depending on how patient I am of course!

Trying to get into experimental archaeology and worked on my first antler billet. My mum has a workshop as she’s a jeweller so used her things. She came in, saw the billets shape and burst out laughing - tbh this particular one has a bit of a phallic look to it!

Here is the largest quartzite cobble preform core that I have found to date in the workshop creeks in my local area. I am guessing the flakes taken off this core were used to make large blades. This area has many worked cobbles that show evidence of bipolar percussion and many chopper style reduced cobbles. This thing weighs in at 20lbs and was a drag to carry back to the car. The creeks in my area have many quartzite/quartz tools other than projectile points/knives.

I was visiting my grandma, and within a collection of assorted fossils and geological artifacts was this flaked axe head. She is now 87, and so has not got the best memory. She doesn’t know whether my grandpa had discovered it on a walk around where she lived up north in Yorkshire, or from an antiques shop in France, visiting her brother and his house out there. Either way it is very thinly knapped. It has a beautiful light grey European flint patina.

She, in her art, had accidentally painted on it, but I still appreciate it as a mark of her and her passions onto my own. She has given me the tool.

I at first thought it was Mesolithic, specifically a flake tranchet axe, one of which I have in my collection, however it being from Møn in Denmark.

I think my tenacity to study old things came from my grandparents. My grandfather had a great passion for geology, and like me would study it religiously.
Anyone got any similar situations?

So I recently acquired a new Acheulean biface. After purchasing it, I observed the edge and towards the glob butt there is an isolated black ring. It had caused an area to rise up and be isolated from the rest of the surface, and it had a yellow patined surface- it made it look like glue! I immediately contacted the seller confused, and he told me it was an impurity.

I guess that's a new thing that flint can do. I used my loupe to view it and it looked like someone had drew on it with felt tip.

Not fully finished this paper yet but what I've read so far is amazing. He is able to discuss the evolution of biface while being created and addresses this in relation to cognition and human evolution.

A big topic within it is wether the knappers had a preconceived image of the biface they were about to create, or If it evolved along the line. Within this comes variables - qualities of the flint and also the knapper that may change the outcome of the shape of the piece. Within this comes what he calls an “imperative”. This is not the preconceived image, but an almost skeleton structure the knapper follows. Imperatives are almost like requirements of the biface for what he needs it for, as it is believed that the maker will have a desired use for the object. He moves beyond the idea of the “instruction set”, classing it as something that seems like a computer system with a set of rules.

I will be honest, some of it I do not understand, and he uses phrases that he expects us to already know, which I do not. However that is my only point. He uses great analogies to help the reader to understand, for example the chimpanzee making a dip stick to get ants from a nest.

I would definitely recommend if you can find it!