"No matter who you are or where you came from, your ancestors used stone tools." -Steven M. Watts

Flintknapping is the art of making stone tools through direct and indirect percussion and applied pressure. With the right materials and basic technique, a stone tool can be made easily, giving a human being an "edge" over nature.

 A basic knapping kit would consist of a hammerstone and a stone that breaks cochoidally--or like glass. A more complex knapping kit includes antler billets, grinding stones, and pressure flakers, like mine as pictured below:

Below are a few of my bifacial blades, including a knife blade/spear point and and two arrowheads. At the top left is an Inuit-style ground slate harpoon point, showing that other kinds of stone can be made into edged tools as well.

Here are some of my stone knives. The knife at the top right is an expedient knife made from a small blade (a piece of broken glass would work), two thin pieces of wood, and some twine.

Below are some examples of bifaced stone tools made by master flintknappers. The two horizontal blades show parallel pressure flaking, which is a technique I have not yet mastered.

 The basic technique involves striking a less-than-ninety-degree angled edge with enough force at the proper angle to cause a cone of energy to travel through the stone and remove a thin flake from the core. The resulting flake will have sharp edges and could be used as a tool without further modification. Using the same technique on the flake further shapes it until you achieve the desired form. Or snap it in half, whichever comes first.

Flintknapping is one of humanity's oldest skills, a skill that makes me feel connected to my ancient forebears. Along with firemaking and shelter-building, it is a most essential skill for surviving in the wilderness.

There are some useful books that teach flintknapping techniges, particularly Practicing Primitive: A Handbook of Aboriginal Skills, by Steven M. Watts, but nothing is better than personal instruction. For my modest skills, I credit Jon Kendrick, Marvin Duke, Ward Weems, Steve Watts and James Parker for providing the hands-on instruction that has been so valuable to me.

What can you do to help people affected by the Florida fires, the Midwest tornadoes, the Cyclone Nargis, or the Sichuan earthquake? Besides giving money to the Red Cross?

If you live in the areas affected you can do something. In Florida, a group of men wearing gas masks were trying to extinguish fires with hoses and garbage cans full of water. In Sichuan, people are moving rubble by hand to reach victims. But unless you live there or will travel there, there's not much you can do for them.

But you can do something:

Prepare for disasters in your area. Assess your risks and prepare for those contingencies. Store extra food, water, clothing. Join a CERT team. Get Red Cross first aid training. Talk about disaster preparedness with your neighborhood watch, your coworkers, your family. Always carry essentials: flashlight, first aid kit, water, etc.

If you had to evacuate and every gas station had a line around the block, how far could you get on the gas in your tank? Without power for two weeks, could you feed your family?

For everything that you are prepared for, that frees up emergency personnel to help someone else. For everything that you are trained for, you can contribute to the emergency response in your area. For every pint of blood you donate, you help save someone's life.

Contribute cash if you want to do something for the people of Oklahoma, Florida, Sichuan, but you should heed these disasters as wake-up calls to assess the state of your preparedness should a disaster strike you or your loved ones.