Modern Flintknapping © all rights reserved
This website is designed for the knappers who want to push the boundaries of flintknapping. It is our quest to make a longer, wider, thinner piece, with emphasis on thinness because we believe that takes more skill to produce. While at the same time maintaining good flaking patterns and contour.
At Modern-Flintknapping, we consider flintknapping a form of art. Like any art form, it can and should progress over time. We do not believe that a flint piece has to be made in the same manner or design as works of the past. We do not believe you must use primitive tools as primitive man did to make your pieces. We believe in using whatever methods that are available to produce the best pieces possible.
We do respect flintknappers who use only primitive methods, we do not in any way condemn them. At the same time, we respect flintknappers using modern tools and equipment as well. We believe that making the best most skillful pieces possible should be encouraged. We find it hypocritical for some to degrade work that uses the flake over grinding technique(FOG) just because primitive man did not have electric grinding wheels. But at the very same time think it is acceptable to use kilns to heat their flint to make it easier to work. Primitive man did heat their flint, but of course an electric kiln was not used. At the same time, primitive man did also use FOG methods, but they ground their flint by hand. An example of this is the work done by the Egyptians.
There seems to be some confusion in the flintknapping community of what is considered a good piece of work. Some in the community offer vague grading scales, which seem to rely more on subjective opinion, self promotion or other financial motives. Emphasis is put on personal popularity, or putting focus on what they think is important which may have no relation to the skill level needed to make a piece. Any piece not made to the same standards as primitive man, such as length and design, is downgraded. We find this ridiculous and actually holding the art of flintknapping back.
In response to this, we have come up with a grading system for flint work, and it is called The Modern Flintknapping Grading System. We have broken the system down into two parts, objective and subjective. The objective part takes into account various measurements of the piece including length, width and diameter and assigns points using mathmatical formulas. The subjective side includes, flaking pattern, contour, and color and will describe what is considered to be a positive or negative aspect of a piece.
Of course, as in any judging, opinions may vary, but we believe we have come up with a fair and less subjective way of judging flint work based on 40 years of flintknapping experience. Our system will put an emphasis on thinness of a piece. What are the pieces of the past that people marvel over today? The Sweetwater and Volgu's are at the top of the list. Why is this? Because of their exceptional thinness of course. Although, these are two traditional pieces that no modern knappers have been able to duplicate to this point that we are aware of.
(updated regularly)