August 2024 Program Information
August 2024 Program
Cindy introduced our speaker, George Lott, who is a member with her in the Massanutten Chapter of the Archaeological Society of VA. He is a talented craftsman who makes wooden chairs, bagpipes, indigenous artifacts, and shares his knowledge with many groups. He uses beads, leather, rocks and flints as tools. George got started being interested in working with flint as a child. He ordered an "Arrowhead Flint Kit" in the early '50s which had tiny bones to use to "create arrowheads". (He had an authentic 1950s kit to show us that he bought off Etsy). He practiced on his own and used many trial and error attempts learning his craft. Eventually, he took a short class taught by Errett Callahan in 2003. Errett (1937-2019) was a renowned flint knapper who taught in Europe and the US; he was self-taught for 10 years, then did extensive studies and research in VA, WY and Denmark to hone his skills.George also did a lot of studying to learn about tool designs and construction. He studied the Louis Leaky family's findings. Louis was a paleoanthropologist and studied the evolution of tool making by humans in Africa. Evidence from Kenya showed that the earliest tools were made around 3.3 million years ago. George showed us some items he has made, and demonstrated using his natural tools to make them. Some of these tools included sandstone, quartzite, deer & moose antlers, and dogwood & boxwood branches. To produce an item, he switches between types of tools and uses various speeds and pressures. For safety, he wears gloves, leather pads and glasses.
George demonstrated bipolar, direct percussion, and indirect percussion to split thin flakes off rocks and to trim them down to the size he wanted. For bipolar, he balanced the rock to be knapped on top of a different rock, then struck the middle rock from on top with a smaller rock. George explained that in certain situations, rocks need to be preheated. He uses a modern method by baking rocks covered in sand in a turkey roaster for several hours at increasing temperatures. (Native Americans buried rocks in pits filled with sand over burning wood.)
He showed some charts to explain the angle from which the hit occurs. Practice with different rock shapes helps the knapper to determine an imaginary center line to start from. He had some basalt, quartzite, agate, mookaite & plain glass that he uses to make spear points. (Arrowheads are mostly "points", are usually small, and can be attached to an arrow shaft with pine tar.) He gave each of us a spearpoint that he had knapped. THANK YOU, GEORGE for sharing your unique talent with us!
