Flint knapping into prehistory

Kumar Akhilesh, a lithic knapping expert is adept at replicating prehistoric stone tools which are a key to understanding various facets of the Homo erectus and the way they lived.

Akhilesh unfailingly spends at least three hours everyday, meticulously chipping away at quartzites, chert and other rocks, one calculated blow after another, till a hand axe emerges, with its sharp edges and flake detachment scars. Akhilesh said that he has replicated it to create a reference pattern.

The archaeologist had recently undergone a three-month training at CENIEH, Burgos, Spain, analysing the edge wear (an archaeological terminology) on these tools to ascertain their purpose. “I was trained to look at the edges under a very high-power microscope. This can tell you what that particular tool was used for — cutting wood or meat or processing a hide. That is why you must look at the signature at the edges,” he said, adding that a specific idea on the purpose of the tools, often made from quartzite, chert and other materials, can be linked to environment and behaviour of the Homo erectus species.

At the Attirampakkam site, there were tools for scraping hides and cutting plants. “This site was a seasonal one, and the people visited it annually for a specific activity.

In case of butchering a large animal, group work was required. But there is also a need for smaller tools, to scrape hides or cut plants.

We found both these types of tools at the site,” he added.

It is not merely the tools themselves but also the “waste” that is valuable. “Excavations are carried out centimetre by centimetre, extracting not only the tools but also the waste that a result from making these tools. The inhabitants made these tools through strategic blows, to get a specific shape. The chips that remain are termed as waste, but are equally important as evidence lies there,” said Akhilesh, who conducts flint knapping workshops, teaching archaeologists and public to create prehistoric tools.