Modern deer hunters, if course, use steel to process their wild game, from small game to the biggest wild game animals on earth. But on the overall timeline of human history, we’ve only been processing game this way for a short period, even if you include the before-steel era.
Before we had the technology to work metal into knives, people processed game with sharp stone tools. Here in North America, many native peoples used flint for this task, and for other tasks that require a sharp edge.
Kentucky hunter and cave exploration expert Jack Bartley wondered if he, a modern hunter, could manage to field dress and butcher a whitetail deer with primitive tools.
“I was wondering, how do people do this with sticks and rocks?” Bartley said. “So, I started looking into it and there are people who still do that. People hunt with stone-age tools. From there, I got into flint knapping.
“Aside from experienced hunters who want something new or challenging, it's also just good for anyone interested in getting into primitive skills,” he added. “Primitive skills are survival skills, so it would be a good experience for anyone interested in stuff like friction fire, natural cordage, etcetera. Being able to improvise effective tools from nature is a great skill.”
Getting Started Making Flint Tools
Finding the necessary flint material for the job is the first step in the process, obviously, but finding it can be difficult, especially if your geographical location isn’t conducive to flint production.
“Not every region will have suitable knapping rocks,” Bartley said. “How flint knapping works is, pretty much any high-silicate rock that flakes is suitable for making arrowheads. That’s the stuff.
"Around here, that’s what you’ll find in and near creek beds. Sometimes, rock outcroppings and fields have these, too. It looks just like European flint. There are a few different varieties with different colors, but you’ll find chunks of it that can be flaked into tools.”
Fortunately, if you don’t live where you can readily pick the correct rocks up from the ground, Bartley says there are many knapping suppliers that sell rocks and tools precisely for this purpose.
Many modern flint knappers use copper tools to knapp their stone tools, and that’s certainly an option. Those who want to take the fully primitive route ditch the copper.
“Traditionally, the primitive way of doing it, referred to as indigenous flint knapping, is done with a hammer stone, which can be a big solid rock that can take a good flake off it,” Bartley said. “The base of an antler, where it’s really dense, can work, too.”
The idea, greatly simplified, is to hold the flint stone on a leather knapping mat on your leg and hit it near the edge with the hammer stone at an angle so that it knocks a flake off, creating a naturally sharp edge. Repeat until you have a long enough cutting surface to work with or the desired shape is achieved. Large flakes from larger pieces of flint can serve as small knives themselves.
Naturally, using your own hand-crafted tools produces a feeling of pride that rarely accompanies a knife purchase. It also adds to the overall hunting experience, creating a greater connection to nature.
“It activates the stone-age part of your brain that’s still there,” Bartley said. “But I make sure that no steel tools touch the deer until I have everything de-boned and in the kitchen. From whole critter to broken down, it’s only stone. It’s very much a learning experience.”
Skinning a Deer with Flint
Once tools are prepped and ready, and you harvest a deer, the real work begins. Skinning with flint has some similarities to using a modern knife, but there are some key differences.
“It’s not that much more difficult,” Bartley said. “Stone knives are efficient for organic matter, like the membrane of a deer. It just goes right through it because of how sharp the edge is. If it’s a good, thin knife that’s sharp, it will go right through it just like steel.”
While the edge on a stone tool may seem razor sharp to the naked eye, the edge actually has fine serrations, which provides much of its cutting power. However, organic matter like hide and hair, can get stuck in those tiny serrations and the tool won’t cut as well, meaning you have to clear it every so often.
Be aware that you also won’t get as clean of a cut on a hide as you would with a smoother steel blade. And of course, while the stone blade is sharp, it’s also very brittle.
“Any kind of stone knife is going to be serrated to a degree because of how it’s made,” he said.
“So, the natural serrations in it can get gummed up with membrane. But it’s easy to pull it right off.”
“When skinning a deer, it helps a lot to follow the natural lines of the muscle membranes,” Bartley said. “And it does help to push against the hide with your knuckles, but that’s true with steel knives, too.”
Just like steel knives need to be sharpened, stone blades need to be reshaped every so often, especially flint. How often depends on how it’s used.
“If you aren’t hitting a lot of bone, it doesn’t really need resharpening,” Bartley said. “I do saw through the ribs with a big stone knife. It does just fine. I might have sharpened it once during the field-dressing process and once during the de-boning process. It’s worth mentioning that I do it mostly with flakes that are broken off a larger rock. These are razor-sharp, but they lose their edge more quickly.”
Stone knives aren’t just suitable for field dressing and skinning; larger examples can also perform heavy cutting tasks.
“Stone knives are effective working wood and bone, too,” Bartley said. “Because of the serrated, rough edge, they work more like a rasp or saw than a knife.”
Flint Knife Safety Brief
When using flint knives (or any knife), it’s crucial to exercise extreme caution. It’s easy to cut yourself with flint tools, especially with cold, slippery hands. After all, your only holding an irregularly shaped piece of smooth stone.
Which is why Brantley says, while he often uses standalone pieces of flint, it’s much safer to attach the flint to a handle and make an actual stone knife, which can be done in a variety of ways. One is pine resin and sinew.
Bartley also uses flint knapping tools with handles to reduce the risk of injury and to be more effective.
“Having it in a handle is such a mechanical advantage. Just in terms of leverage, getting into spots, and it makes it to where you don’t cut yourself as easily,” he said. “It’s better all-around to have flint knives on handles.
“When flint knapping, you use your hands, and you can get cut,” Bartley said. “I’ve noticed that, if I get cut by a flake, it closes faster than a cut with the same severity from a steel knife. I think it has something to do with the steel oxidizing the wound.”
While the goal here is to get primitive, it’s still best to use modern safety gear when knapping, like gloves and safety glasses.
Experienced hunters who have used steel knives for their entire lives can get a lot out of approaching an aspect of hunting caveman style. Before you know it, you’ll be spot-and-stalking deer with a homemade trad bow and stone arrow heads.
Related Articles
