Flint knapping became popular with archaeologists in the 1960s as it was a good way to replicate types of ancient technologies and therefore understand the historical progression of lithic artefacts. Soon, knapping became popular with non-academics in America, and communities and knapping events were set up across the country. These amateur knappers were not necessarily interested in the scientific and archaeology of knapping, but instead enjoyed it as a modern past time where people could socialise and share materials and ideas. It is now estimated there are around ‘5,000’ (Whittaker 1999, 206) amateur knappers in the US. Although it sounds like a great past time, modern knappers are causing huge problems for archaeologists!
Knappers create a huge amount of flint debitage and stone tools which are practically indistinguishable from ancient stonework. In addition, most contemporary knappers create modern looking or artistic stone tools, however others create replicas and fakes that can be sold onto the antiquities market as real lithics. Archaeologists and collectors argue that this has been going on since the 19th century, for example Edward Simpson produced huge quantities of fake flint in the 1850s and was labelled the famous ‘flint jack’ (Whittaker 1999, 204). New lithics can be made to look prehistoric by scuffing them or making them look antiquated through acids. Fakes are bad for collectors as they taint real lithic collections and make assemblages worthless on the market due to other buyers being worried or purchasing fakes.
It is also bad for archaeologists as they get bequeathed collections by donors so they can be studied. However, if collections are full of fakes then their research can be wrong! But archaeologists already believe that high quantities of fake lithics have been around for decades and have already influenced typologies of lithics in North America (Whittaker 1999). Contemporary knappers who do not make fakes do also unwittingly affect the archaeological record. As many of the knappers go to prehistoric flint resource sites and remove stone, this contaminates the site and removes evidence of past human behaviour.
Furthermore, many knappers will test flint on site in order to make sure it is good, this creates ‘spalls’ and ‘blanks’ (Whittaker 1999, 212) which will be indistinguishable to the ancient debris at the prehistoric flint sites. This is essentially cultural formation processes, but it is nearly impossible to try and distinguish (Whittaker). This is why it is very important that knappers source their flint from unused or new resources and they knap on large matts and remove all their debiatge and dispose of it carefully. Many contemporary knappers have refuse pits in their gardens or go to landfill sites so as to make sure they dispose of their flint work in obviously modern contexts.
References:
Whittaker, J. 1999. Replicas, Fakes, and Art: The Twntieth Century Stone Age and Its Effects on Archaeology. American Antiquity. Vol 64, Issue 2, pp 203-214.
Masterpieces of Modern Lithic Art. 2014. Dovetails By Roy Miller. [Online]
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