An analysis of a Natchez gunflint assemblage from the lower Mississippi valley and its implications for eighteenth-century colonial economic interactions

The Injury Costs of Knapping

“…For approximately three million years, hominins have been flaking rock that possesses the property of conchoidal fracture (Braun et al 2019;Harmand et al 2015;Semaw et al 1997). This process of stone tool production is called "knapping," and it was practiced by Pleistocene and Holocene huntergatherers (e.g., Lycett 2011;Shea 2017;Williams et al 2019) and toolmakers and craft specialists in ancient sedentary and complex societies (e.g., Horowitz and McCall 2019;Rosen 1997;Shafer and Hester 1991), as well as by historically and ethnographically documented peoples (e.g., Horowitz and Watt 2020;Roux et al 1995;Stout 2005;Watt and Horowitz 2017;Weedman Arthur 2018;Whittaker 2001;Whittaker and Levin 2019;Whittaker et al 2009). Knapping is also undertaken by modern experimental archaeologists and hobbyists with interests in the evolution, function, production, and artistry of past stone tool technologies (Eren and Patten 2019;Eren et al 2016;Lycett and Chauhan 2010;Shea 2015;Whittaker 1994Whittaker , 2004.…”