[2012 05 12]
Tips & tricks - Glimpses into Le Grand-Pressigny museum of prehistory, during a quick trip to a famous flint country.
[update may 2019 : see also this excellent video with Jacques Pellegrin : [ Ссылка ]]
[update 2015 07 21 : on channel Neo02Manu, the full version has just been uploaded ; see [ Ссылка ] "Grand Pressigny Museum flint knapping video of blade making " ; the beginning shows how to shape the big core ; the end shows the making of a simple knife from a huge blade ]
[ update june 2014 : don't miss [ Ссылка ] ("Challenges of the Past - Experimental Archaeology in Lejre" - by user "TheDanishFlinthead") particularly around 3:48 and around 4;50 for short demos by Jacques Pelegrin : producing large blades and using a giant primitive pressure flaker ]
I tried for a while to find in the fields some real prehistoric tools... but didn't stumble upon anything. So, I went to admire the famous large flint blades in Le Grand-Pressigny museum of prehistory.
I videotaped part of the video shown in the museum, but maybe an official full version is already somewhere on the web.
Interesting points underlined by the exhibition :
- the production of these large flint blades is contemporary of the end of the european neolithic period and lasted 400 years : 2800-2400 BC ;
- copper and bronze tools already existed but were still scarce ;
- the large blades (largely exported over europe) were used mainly as sickles by the agriculturalists ; other blades were transformed into daggers ; when broken, the blades were turned in more common flint tools ;
- flint cores discarded after the production of the blades were discovered in great numbers in the fields locally ;
See also [ Ссылка ]
The knapper in the vid is said to be Jacques Pelegrin. I did not videotaped the credits part, but found the info in the museum booklet (in french, page 19, § "cave 3", wwwww.prehistoiregrandpressigny.fr/presse/20091014171409.pdf). He his an archeologist known for his experimentations and seems to be considered the best [in France] at producing such large blades.
Textual explanations about the technique, by Jacques Pelegrin, found in in "Skilled Production and Social Reproduction - Aspects of Traditional Stone-Tool Technologies Proceedings of a Symposium in Uppsala, August 20--24, 2003" [at [ Ссылка ]] , page 62 to 66 : The Grand-Pressigny long blades detached from the "livre-de-beurre" cores (western France; J. Pelegrin 2002)".
Many other chapters of this huge 450-pages-publication describe also techniques and flint products of the old world [ex. Northern Europe, Danish Daggers, Long blade technology in the old world : sites in Greece, Bulgaria, Syria, France, Sardinia, Portugal], in the new world [ex. sites in Patagonia, Argentina, ...], in Australia. May be the central place to learn something :-)
[tags in description : jacques Pelegrin Pélegrin flintkapping knapping knives flint prehistory museum taille de silex grandes lames selce pedernal livre de beurre Chalcolithic Ле-Гран-Пресиньи кремень 燧石 大量生产 大燧石刀片 先史時代 大フリントブレード préhistoire preistoria ]
