Flint Ridge Knap-In 2007

Last weekend I met my brother at the Flint Ridge Knap-In in Ohio. It is one of the biggest flintknapping gatherings in the country. It's special because it takes place at a historic flint quarry. You may be able to read the words in the picture below, but in summary, the site was used to quarry and make flint arrowheads and spear points for 10,000 years. Looking at an overhead map of the area, you can see thousands of small quarries that are mostly filled with water now.



I bought 40+ pounds of dacite and obsidian rock to tide me over for awhile. The following day the guy I bought it from bought a hickory stave for bow making from me which basically gave me half my money back. It worked out beautifully. I spent most of my time knapping. I'm still a beginner and haven't made an arrowhead suitable for hunting. I'm trying to finish at least one before I go hunting in a week.

The is one piece of obsidian I was working on. I haven't been able to make this into a point yet.


They had an atlatl (spear-thrower) range set up and allowed anyone to try it for free. They also had a competition where you threw three darts at five different distances. I didn't do very well, but my brother did. It was fun though. I'm going to have to makes some darts for the atlatl I made.


My brother and I had to make an unexpected trip to Iowa following the knap-in, so we stopped by my viburnum patch on the way out of Indy. We each harvested some gorgeous shafts. Today I'm going to start working on a bowstring made of yucca fibers. If I can do that and make a stone arrow head, I can hunt with completely primitive gear in a week.