The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [130]
Then Droog stopped, wrapped his hand around his amulet, and closed his eyes. An element of luck as well as skill was necessary for the next crucial steps. He stretched his arms, flexed his fingers, and reached for the bone hammer. Ayla held her breath. He wanted to make a striking platform, to remove a small chip from one end of the oval-shaped flat top that would leave a dent with a surface perpendicular to the flake he wanted to remove. The striking platform was necessary for the flake to fall away cleanly with sharp edges. He examined both ends of the oval surface, decided on one, took careful aim, and struck a sharp blow, then let out his breath as the small piece chipped away. Droog held the discoidal nucleus firmly on the anvil, and gauging the distance and point of impact with precision, he struck the small dent he had made, with the bone hammer. A perfect flake fell away from the prefabricated core. It had a long oval shape, sharp edges, was roughly flattened on the outside with a smooth inner bulbar face, and was slightly thicker at the end that was struck, diminishing to a thin section at the other.
Droog looked at the core again, turned it, and struck off another small chip to form a platform, opposite to the end of the previous striking platform, then removed a second preformed flake. Within a few moments, Droog had cleaved six flakes and discarded the butt of the flint core. They all had a long oval shape and tended to narrow at the thinner end to a point. He looked over the flakes carefully and arranged them in a row ready for the finishing touches that would turn them into the tools he wanted. From a stone of almost the same size as the one used to make a single hand-axe, he had gotten six times the cutting edge with the newer technique, a cutting edge he could shape to a variety of useful tools.
With a small, slightly flattened round stone, Droog gently knicked off the sharp edge on one side of the first flake to define the point, but more importantly, to blunt the back so the handheld knife could be used without cutting the user; retouching, not to sharpen the already thin sharp edge, but to dull the back for safe handling. He gave the knife a critical evaluation, removed a few more tiny chips, then, satisfied, he put it down and reached for the next flake. Going through the same process, he made a second knife.
The next flake Droog selected was a larger one from nearer the center of the egg-shaped core. One edge was nearly straight. Holding the flake against the anvil, Droog applied pressure with a small bone and detached a small piece from the blade edge, then several more, leaving a series of V-shaped notches. He blunted the back of the denticulated tool and reexamined the small-toothed saw he had just made, then nodded and put it down.
Using the same piece of bone, the toolmaker retouched the entire blade edge of a smaller, rounder flake into a steep convex form, creating a sturdy, slightly blunt-edged tool that would not break easily from the pressure of scraping wood or animal hides, and would not tear the skins. On another flake, he made one deep V notch on the cutting edge, especially useful for shaping the points of wooden spears, and on the last flake—which came to a sharp point on the thin end but had rather wavy blade edges—he blunted both sides, leaving the point. The tool could be used as an awl to pierce holes in leather or as a borer to make holes in wood or bone. All of Droog’s tools were made to be held in the hand.
Droog looked once more over the kit of tools he had manufactured, then motioned to Ayla who had been watching in rapt attention, hardly daring to breathe. He handed her the scraper and one of the wide sharp flakes that were removed in the process of making the hand-axe.
“You can have these. You may find them useful if you come with us on the mammoth hunt,” he gestured.
Ayla’s eyes were glowing. She handled the tools as if they were the most precious of gifts. They were. Is it possible I might be chosen to go along with the hunters