Multi-functional flint Neolithic or Paleolithic tool, 82 mm

A masterpiece Neolithic tool, which can be used as a knife, scraper, chopper, hand-axe, arrow head, spear head, etc.

Length: 82 mm;

Weight: 20.64 g;

Mohs’ hardness: 9.0-9.5;

Provenance: from private collection in USA

Flint was one of the most important materials in the Stone Age, used by people everywhere around the world. This raises at least one obvious question: why? 

What makes flint so special?

Flint is a unique kind of rock. Like other forms of quartz, it's very hard and very durable. 

That's useful. After all, for all the effort it would take a nomadic people to create their tools, you don't want to waste resources or time. So, why not just use quartz? 

As a micro-crystalline variety of quartz, flint has a unique molecular structure. 

There's a lot of science that we don't really need to discuss here, but what matters is that when you strike flint in just the right way, it breaks into uniform flakes with a very sharp edge.

This is what made flint so valuable to ancient people. 

It was hard enough to be used time and again, but was also workable. 

They knew that if they took a large piece of flint and hit it with another rock or bone, it would break in predictable and controllable ways. 

Other kinds of rock would just shatter or splinter, making them impossible to craft into a usable tool. 

Flint is one of the best stones there is for creating a reliable tool, particularly if you need one with a sharp edge, and ancient people around the world discovered that.