The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [89]
Wymez was smiling, nodding his head in agreement. “That’s true, Jondalar, but let me show you something.” The older man got a heavy hide-wrapped bundle from behind him and opened it up. He picked up a huge axe head, a gigantolith the size of a sledgehammer, made from a whole nodule of flint. It had a rounded butt, and had been shaped to a rather thick cutting end that came to a point. “You’ve made something like this, I’m sure.”
Jondalar smiled. “Yes, I’ve made axes, but nothing as big as that. That must be for Talut.”
“Yes, I was going to haft this to a long bone for Talut … or maybe Danug,” Wymez said, smiling at the young man. “These are used to break mammoth bones or to sever tusks. It takes a powerful man to wield one. Talut handles it like a stick. I think Danug can do the same by now.”
“He can. He cut poles for me,” Ayla said, looking at Danug with appreciation, which brought on a flush and a shy smile. She, too, had made and used hand axes, but not of that size.
“How do you make an axe?” Wymez continued.
“I usually start by breaking off a thick flake with a hammerstone, and retouching on both sides to give it an edge and a point.”
“Ranec’s mother’s people, the Aterians, make a spear point with bifacial retouch.”
“Bifacial? Knapped on both sides like an axe? To get it reasonably straight, you’d have to start with a big slab of a flake, not a fine, thin blade. Wouldn’t that be too clumsy for a spear point?”
“It was somewhat thick and heavy, but a definite improvement over an axe. And very effective for the animals they hunted. It’s true, though. To pierce a mammoth or a rhino, you need a flint point that is long and straight, and strong, and thin. How would you do it?” Wymez asked.
“Bifacially. It’s the only way. On a flake that thick, I’d use flat pressure retouch to remove fine slivers from both sides,” Jondalar said thoughtfully, trying to imagine how he would make such a weapon, “but that would take tremendous control.”
“Exactly. The problem is control, and the quality of the stone.”
“Yes. It would have to be fresh. Dalanar, the man who taught me, lives near an exposed cliff of chalk that bears flint at ground level. Maybe some of his stone would work. But even then, it would be hard. We’ve made some fine axes, but I don’t know how you’d make a decent spear point that way.”
Wymez reached for another package wrapped in fine soft leather. He opened it carefully and exposed several flint points.
Jondalar’s eyes opened in surprise. He looked up at Wymez, then at Danug, who was smiling with pride for his mentor, then he picked up one of the points. He turned it over in his hands tenderly, almost caressing the beautifully worked stone.
The flint had a slippery feel, a smooth, not-quite-oily quality, and a sheen that glistened from the many facets in the sunlight. The object had the shape of a willow leaf, with near perfect symmetry in all dimensions, and it extended the full length of his hand from the base of his palm to his fingertips. Starting at one end in a point, it spread out to the breadth of four fingers in the middle, then back to a point at the other end. Turning it on edge, Jondalar saw that it did indeed lack the characteristic bowed shape of the blade tools. It was perfectly straight, with a cross section about the thickness of his small finger.
He felt the edge professionally. Very sharp, just slightly denticulated by the scars of the many tiny flakes that had been removed. He ran his fingertips lightly over the surface and felt the small ridges left behind by the many similar tiny flakes that had been detached to give the flint point such a fine, precise shape.
“This is too beautiful