The Stone Tools lesson plan is designed to introduce youth to the science behind how Indigenous people made and used stone tools. Stone tools have been made for millennia. Their production requires great knowledge about raw materials and how they can be fractured and shaped into tools. This lesson teaches the physics concepts behind stone tool making.
Grade Level: 6-8
Objective: The goal of this lesson is to introduce stone tools, how they are made, and discuss the physics behind the process, including the attributes in the raw material necessary for producing a stone tool.
Learning Outcomes: At the end of the lesson, learners will understand the physics behind making a stone tool and what characteristics in lithic raw materials are required to make a stone tool. By the end of the lesson, learners will be able to answer the following:
- What techniques are used to make stone tools?;
- What materials are used as tools to make stone tools?;
- From what types of stone are the stone tools made?;
- Where are they found in NY?
- What materials would survive from the stone tool manufacturing process?;
- What would a stone tool manufacturing site look like archaeologically?
STEM: physics, geology
Materials: Videos of flintknapping demonstrations; or, if there is someone demonstrating knapping, safety goggles for all youth, raw material (of various types; chert in New York State), knapping tools (hammerstone, antler billets and tines), drop cloth; gloves if learners are knapping.
Time: 60 minutes
Overview: Stone was used as a raw material by almost all human cultures. For much of human history, artifacts made of stone are the only surviving artifact. Therefore, it is important for archaeologists to understand how stone tools were made and used.
Flint and chert were the most commonly knapped materials and are compact cryptocrystalline quartz. These materials are “silicates,” a family of cryptocrystalline quartzes that are good for knapping. Some other materials used are quartz, jasper, rhyolite, chalcedony, and obsidian (volcanic glass).
There are three major chert-bearing rock units in New York. Devonian limestones contain the chert-bearing Onondaga and Helderberg limestones; and Ordovician shales contain the chert-bearing Normanskill shale. The most extensive are the Onondaga and Normanskill formations. While all three rock units converge in the Hudson Valley region, Normanskill is confined geographically to the Hudson Valley and eastward while Onondaga Cherts outcrop in a broad band across southern New York from the western edge of the Hudson Valley to as far west as Buffalo. In the east the formation extends south into northern New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. In central and western New York, the Onondaga formation is the major chert-bearing unit. Helderberg cherts outcrop primarily west of the Hudson River along the Allegheny Plateau between the Normanskill and Onondaga formations. Normanskill, Helderberg, and Onondaga cherts were commonly used by precontact peoples in the Hudson drainage. In southern New York, Onondaga cherts are the most commonly encountered material at precontact sites. While primary quarry sources are not common, source areas have been identified for Onondaga chert in the Buffalo area, for Normanskill chert in the Coxsackie-Catskill area, and for Helderberg chert in eastern Green County, New York. Normanskill, Onondaga, and Helderberg cherts are commonly found as cobbles in secondary streams and gravel deposits.
People may have traveled many miles to find high quality stone for making tools. Stone that had the qualities necessary for tools (see below) was either gathered from stream beds or quarried from outcrops. These sources were returned to 2 over time. Knowledge of where to find good raw materials for making stone tools was passed down orally through generations within a community. Precontact people learned to make stone tools from elders who were experts in tool production.
Physics behind Flinknapping
The stone must be brittle so that it will break easily and with a sharp edge. It has to have strength to maintain a sharp edge. It also has to be elastic to bend when the flake comes off and not shatter into fragments. It has to have no impurities or changes in texture to break equally well in any direction with no internal fracture planes that will predetermine how it will break. Where and how the material breaks can then be determined by the flintknapper and how he or she applies the force.
When the knapper hits the stone, the hammerstone transfers energy into the stone in the shape of a cone. This is like when a rock hits plate glass or a car windshield or if a pebble is dropped in a pond. A small hole is made and the energy passing through the glass (or raw material) forms a cone. Show a slow-motion video of a pebble or rain drops hitting water to watch the energy move through the water in concentric circles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pot-S4koghk
If the raw material is hit on its edge (and not the middle), the energy passes as a cone, but it does not go into the air, it comes back in and meets energy on other side of the cone and allows it to break and a flake is removed.
Vocabulary: Flintknapping or knapping, flake, cryptocrystalline, silicates, hammerstone, quartz, jasper, rhyolite, chalcedony, obsidian
Procedure: Talk with the learners about what stone tools are and ask them how they think they were made. Have examples of raw materials (cryptocrystalline and non- cryptocrystalline) and stone tools to show the youth. They will examine and compare different types of stone to see if they can tell any differences between the raw materials and to identify which materials would be most useful for making stone tools.
Watch a video of someone flintknapping (Flintknapping With Dr Bruce Bradley [DVD or YouTube], https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e_ribJLw30, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oXJdAq9Tio) or watch a flintknapper. Discuss the principles of stone tool manufacture. If there is someone knapping, learners must wear safety 3 googles and maintain a safe distance from the knapper so stone material does not hit them during the manufacturing process. Learners will handle tools used to make the stone tools and the stone tools themselves in various stages of production. One at a time, have learners try to knap a piece of raw material (take off a flake) under the supervision of an adult. Learners must wear safety goggles and gloves when knapping.
If artifacts are not available, replicas or drawings can be used or 3D printed artifacts (scans can be found at https://sketchfab.com/virtualcurationlab/collections/new-york-state-museum; please do not purchase artifacts).
Give learners flakes (or have them use flakes they made during the flintknapping activity). These are the waste materials from making a stone tool. However, their edges are sharp, and flakes were often used as tools themselves. Learners can try cutting different materials (wood, leather, cloth, etc.) with the flakes and/or try cutting with flakes of different materials (jasper, chert, obsidian, etc.). Ask learners: what material was easiest to cut?; flakes made from what raw material were easiest to cut with? Learners can also try removing bark from a stick with the flakes.
Assessment Activities: During the lesson, the knapper and instructors will ask learners questions. Learners will make a flake and will describe how they did it.
Wrap up: Learners will be asked what characteristics of a raw material are necessary for its use in making a stone tool. Learners will outline the process of making a stone tool and what types of stone tools were made and used in the past.
