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Flint Tools and Weapons
From the stoneage through to the Bronze age, flints were the tools & weapons of early man. The majority of the flints recovered to date from Warburton come from the early bronze age period circa 2000BC and were made using a technique known as knapping. Knapping in simple terms means to work & shape flint into the required profile by striking a flint nodule using stone or in some cases deer antler to break pieces off , these were then finely worked to give shape and in the case of knives & arrowheads a razor sharp edge was produced. A piece of worked flint can usually be identified by the fact that it will always have percussion marks which are caused by the sudden impact from the knapping process. Unworked flint however will not normally have any percussion marks and often has a smooth surface where any natural breaks have occurred. Field walking is a good way to recover worked flint implements & it is a good way to search for early settlements, a concentration of worked flints could indicate a possible site.
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