Chert Tools Introduction
CHERT TOOLS OF HIGHLAND NEW GUINEA.
THE TOOLS
Chert flake tools have a wide range of uses, including paring, smoothing, cutting, shaping, engraving, shaving and boring a range of materials such as wood, bark, bamboo, cane, bone, tusk and seashell. The tools comprise irregular shaped flakes with at least one very sharp edge for cutting, boring and so on. People in the Was valley usually use flakes as struck off a parent nodule without further preparation, although occasionally individuals may mount smaller ones in a rough wooden handle. The uses to which they put flakes depend on their size and shape, from delicate tools used to shave materials, such as rattan vine strands, to chunky ones used to shape and smooth wood, such as axe hafts. The sharp cutting edge also suits flakes for the butchering of meat, such as pork and game.
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| Paring a bone using chert flake. | Paring flake tool |
Highlanders use flint-like and brittle siliceous rock called aeray to make flake implements. It produces good tools when struck, fracturing with sharp edges akin to a sliver of glass. It is men who use chert tools largely, although women sometimes have occasion to do so (for instance, to smooth the handles of their digging sticks). The use life of flake implements is usually brief, for although they have surprisingly sharp cutting edges when freshly knapped, they soon become dull and demand replacement. People usually discard flakes when they have finished with them, making new tools as and when they need them. Occasionally individuals keep a sharp-edged and usefully shaped tool for use again, but they are small and easily lost (even when wrapped up before stowing in a string bag).
The raw materials are plentiful, collecting a chert nodule demanding little time and energy, and flake tools are soon knapped. Individuals are free to collect suitable aeray ‘chert’ nodules from anywhere, no one exercising exclusive rights to sources such as streambeds on their land. In addition to a chert nodule, tool makers require an appropriate sized rock to use as a hammer stone, such as a piece of hard basalt. Suitable stones are often found around homesteads, where they are used for cooking in earth ovens. People take care when disposing of used tools and debitage, stashing out of harm’s way where they are not a hazard to bare feet, and store unused pieces and sizeable cores where they may find them again.
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| Collecting nodule from stream. | Knapping chert nodule |
All men are capable of knapping chert blades, and if asked, will pass flakes on to their female kin. According to men, only they make chert tools, although a few spirited women occasionally do so too. The knapping of blades is easy and soon accomplished. Persons simply strike a chert nodule with a hammer stone to strike off suitable pieces. They may either hold the nodule unsupported or place it on a stone anvil-like, although such bipolar knapping is not popular as it tends overly to shatter the rock. Men have little control over the size and shape of the flakes they knap off. The process seems somewhat random, tool-makers striking at a nodule until they obtain a piece suitable for their purposes, which usually occurs after a couple of blows or so, several sharp edged pieces usually breaking off with each hit. They rarely touch pieces up, discarding unsuitable fragments from the parent nodule without working further. It takes only a few seconds to produce a tool. Sometimes an implement of specific size and shape, like a narrow borer, takes longer, requiring several blows to obtain a flake of the desired dimensions. It may take fifteen minutes or so to obtain such a specialised blade and mount in a handle. The few flakes men mount in handles they wedge into the split end of a stick and roughly bind with any suitable vine or bark fibre strand to hand. Users often mount borers in handles so that they can be twirled rapidly back and forth between the palms in drilling holes.
These versatile little tools are an integral part of the Was valley tool-kit. Readily made from materials that are available in ample supply, these disposable implements are not traded, unlike stone axes that carried a considerable exchange value (originating elsewhere, large ones changing hands for a pig). Even with the advent of steel tools flaked blades remain in use, although somewhat less so than previously, for they have extremely sharp edges and can be selected according to size and shape for particular tasks.
THE CATALOGUE
The Images are catalogued according to Tool Usage — as they do not fit the standard archaeological scheme of points, blades, etc. — as follows (brackets = code abbreviation):
Boring Tools (B); Butchering Tools (BCH); Carving Tools (CRV); Cores (C); Cutting and Skinning Tools (CS); Cutting Tools (CT); Engraving Tools (E); Mounted Paring Tools (MP); Hammerstones (H); Paring and Chopping Tools (PC); Paring Tools – small (Ps); Paring Tools – medium (Pm); Paring Tools – large (Pl); Paring and Shaping Tools (Two edges used) (PST); Shaping Tools (SHP); Shaving Tools (SHV); Smoothing Tools (SMT); Specimens – Unused/Pristine (SPR); Specimens – Documented Use – small (SDs); Specimens – Documented Use – medium (SDm); Specimens –Documented Use – large (SDl); Trimming and Boring Tools (TB); Trimming and Cutting Tools (TC); Trimming and Engraving Tools (TE).
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| Paring | Smoothing | Cutting | Shaping |
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| Engraving | Shaving | Mounting tool | Shaving with mounted tool |
The Images are also catalogued according to Tool Size, as follows:
Small = Greatest dimension less than 50mm; Medium = Greatest dimension between 50 to 100mm; Large = Greatest dimension more than 100mm.
REFERENCES
1988 Made in Niugini : technology in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. London: British Museum Publications and [1989] Bathurst: Crawford House Press.
2003a Material Perspectives: Stone Tool Use and Material Culture in Papua New Guinea (with Karen Hardy) Internet Archaeology 14 (http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue14/)
2003b Living lithics: Ethnoarchaeology in Highland Papua New Guinea (with K.Hardy) Antiquity 77 (297):555-566
2004 The blade runners. Stone tools: the men (New Guinea highlands). British Archaeology 79 (Nov. 2004): 22-25
2005 Use-life and curation in New Guinea experimental used flakes Journal of Archaeological Science 32: 653-663 (with M. Shott).
Visit the following British Museum website to see examples of artefacts made using chert tools (a collection of Was valley artefacts):