About this Website
This website grew out of my project for Anthropology 476L: Lithic Analysis during my MA at California State University, Northridge. Matthew Des Lauriers taught us lithic analysis by teaching us flintknapping. Matthew specializes in lithic analysis and has been flintknapping since 1999. We spent most of class outside attempting to fashion tools out of obsidian, flint, chert, and other materials. I had great respect for our ancestors before this class. I have even more respect for them after trying (and generally failing) to produce a functional biface.
To help others understand the flintknapping skills our ancestors developed, I decided to create educational materials. I took photos and made videos of the step-by-step flintknapping process from the knapper’s-eye-view so that people could understand how people in the past created the artifacts that we find today. Joanne Minerbi and Austin Ringelstein contributed to this project. Matthew graciously agreed to let me record a flintknapping demonstration that would would show more advanced techniques than any of us beginning flintknappers could perform.
Juan Cobo and my classmates in HIST 250LA: Workshop on Historical and Digital Methods in Latin American History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, taught me the skills and provided the tools necessary to set up this website.
Using these Materials
If you are an instructor, feel free to use these materials in your classroom. Please acknowledge this website as your source in accordance with my license:
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International LicenseAlso, I'd love to hear about how you are using these materials and how your students respond.
Contact
If you have any comments or questions about this website, feel free to contact me at erareshide@ucsb.edu.