Flintknapping offered at Bement Billings Farmstead

Flintknapping offered at Bement Billings FarmsteadKnapped samples.
Flintknapping offered at Bement Billings Farmstead

A workshop with Michael McGrath.

On June 9, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., a workshop entitled “Flintknapping I, Pressure Flaking” will be offered at the Bement Billings Farmstead Museum on Route 38 in Newark Valley. 

The cost of the workshop is $40 for members, and $45 for non-members and includes flint material and tools are provided. Call Leslie at 642-5412 by May 22 to register. 

Michael McGrath will lead the workshop, where guests will learn the basics, work small points, and hone their skills. 

It was a long cold winter. Snow piled up so high on the Old Master’s clan home that he worried about the roof giving way to the weight. He can’t remember a winter this cold in all his adult years. Food was low; in fact the clan’s food was almost completely gone.  

Winter hunting had been difficult, even with the snowshoes he’d made several years ago. Despite the hard winter, the one they call Old Master had used the time wisely by taking several pieces of flint he’d quarried in the fall and finished them into six beautiful knife blades as well as a bark basket full of 200 or more atatl dart points made from the larger flakes of the blades.

With the winter winds still biting at the skin, the Old Master took his last rough blade out of a leather pouch that once held seven blades just like it. This grey and white mottled piece of flint traveled to this valley from a great distance off the shores of a great lake up northwest of his village and valley.  

Taking out his antler pressure flaker and hard stone, he began pushing flakes off the blade and dulling the sharp edges with the hard stone preparing them for more flakes to be pushed off. Soon he’d refined the blade to perfection with a great sharpness on its edges. He’d finished his last blade. This one would be made into a knife for himself, and the other six would be traded for goods he could not make for himself. 

The basket full of points would be traded to his clan and others in the village so they could use them to hunt and the Old Master could obtain clothing and other items to help him have an easier time living this summer.

If you’ve ever held an artifact arrowhead or viewed one at a museum and wondered just how they were made, this is your opportunity to join Flintknapping Artist Michael McGrath for the Beginner Pressure Flaking Course he teaches in conjunction with the Newark Valley Historical Society.  

The class fee includes teaching, tools, and flint. Past students who wish to take the class again are welcome.

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