The Blade and the Core

Extract

If a man who merely amuses himself by flaking flints ventures to offer advice to professional archaeologists, he may be set down as loutish or impertinent. But I will take the chance. I should like to ask the professional brethren to restudy some of the North American sites and look carefully for blades or lamellar flakes. For I am persuaded that blades will be found wherever long, thin, and shapely projectile points are found.

In spite of Holmes (1919, Chapters 13 and 19), it is extremely difficult to make a pretty projectile point by nibbling down a core, whereas it is easy to make one by trimming a blade. The circumstantial evidence indcates that any workman, early or late, who wished to make a long, thin, and delicate point would begin with a blade rather than with a core. The most successful of the contemporary fakers, indeed, have simplified the process by sawing out flat blades with a lapidary saw.