Stone tools & knapping - anyone had a go?

[Peacekeeper1966]

Afternoon all,

Time for a bit of show n tell:

My maternal Grandfather was a sheep grazier out around Gunnedah until the 60's when he retired to Tamworth and bought a smaller property at Nemingha, just so he could keep on terrorising his bank manager. He was not a man of pleasant disposition and my father and the old bastard did not get on.

Apart from upsetting Christmas dinners and shooting Wedgetail Eagles out in the paddocks because they took his Peppin-Merino lambs and having a 'Chinaman' for a cook at the homestead, he also came across aboriginal stone tools from time to time. I have had a few handed down to me and here they are. One has been knapped and the other appears to have been ground along a stone groove.

My mother has a few more, one very unusual in that it is an almost equilateral triangle wedge, each side about 4 inches long. Around the centre and from the base of the wedge, material has been removed but leaving the working/striking edge intact so as the tool can be grasped and used in a pushing or striking action. It is pretty heavy and thinking about how it may have been used, it seems to lend its self to hacking through heavy materials or maybe bone. Just a guess there as I know nothing about this stuff.

The Peacekeeper

 

[Outback]

This is a bit different , small stone about 4" long with some old markings both sides .
What do you blokes think .

 

[madworld]

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[AtomRat]

Cheers for the story and handed down trinket photos! Hard to tell what half of the tools were 'meant' for but each probably had multiple uses. The more rounded one you posted reminds me of the ones used to scrape fat off I think by circular motion, the other certainly looks nasty haha many were made to fit comfortable in the hand or through a piece of hardwood handle for chopping

Outback - the art on your rock there certainly seems of aboriginal origin. I think that 'U' symbolises a man sitting down with his legs crossed and he may be at a water hole or fire. A kangaroo ( with boobs, lookin sad n gravitised ) at the top

 

[Mungoman]

Outback, if that thing is real, it's called a turinga - aboriginal men of high degree would recognise the engraving - it talks basically about an area of high significance that housed a particular mob of people, and how they got there, and their place in the tjukirpa (dreaming).

If it is real it shouldn't be seen by us whitefellas, because we don't know The Law.

 

[Outback]

Outback, if that thing is real, it's called a turinga - aboriginal men of high degree would recognise the engraving - it talks basically about an area of high significance that housed a particular mob of people, and how they got there, and their place in the tjukirpa (dreaming).

If it is real it shouldn't be seen by us whitefellas, because we don't know The Law.

Thanks Mungo ' can I mod delete the photo please , don't want to upset anyone

 

[Bacchus]

Check this guy out seriously impressive as far as survival is concerned , his post on creating a Celt axe is also worth a look

http://youtu.be/nCKkHqlx9dE

Cheers

 

[Old school Richie]

Not sure about flint but traditionally greenstone (diabase) was used in SE Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_William_stone_axe_quarry

Green stone won't knap it's only good for ground tools.Look for cherts.Also most cherts knap better with heat treatment.Learn knapping on glass it's easy to start knapping with.

 

[Old school Richie]

Green stone won't knap it's only good for ground tools.Look for cherts.Also most cherts knap better with heat treatment.Learn knapping on glass it's easy to start knapping with.

This was a reject Egyption head I made.I wasn't happy with the flake travel.It would still work well on game if needed

 

[Moneybox]

I've been trying to find a photo from last year where somebody had spent quite a bit of time chipping off sharp shards of light grey very hard rock. I took a photo and coordinates of the patch about 1.5m round in the area near Lake Annean north of Cue. There were plenty of pieces large and sharp enough to be used as cutting tools or axe heads and I couldn't see any other reason for the work that had been done. All I found was that photo of the Golden Goose but most of my photos are at home not on this new computer. I'll try to track them down when I get home.