Flintknapping is tricky. Not only do you have to keep a solid edge, but there is an enormous risk of bloody messes due to the razor-sharp flecks flying in every direction.

Nevertheless, I persisted. Bandaged and humbled I ended up with some very amateurish blades that would, given enough elbow grease, cut through firm butter.

Unfortunately and embarassingly, I had to take off a lot of material before I could even start to wedge the blade into the handle. In flintknapping, the sign of an expert is how big of a flake you can take off with one strike. I am not yet good at this, and so I was making crumbs more than I was making flakes.

Because I was just crumbling the edges of my blade, I couldn't thin out the piece enough to fit into the handle. It was just too fat and I didn't have the skill to make it slim.

I tried again with the other, smaller blade, but the problem persisted. Here is where we collapse against the foothills of the mountains of practice, practice, practice. Even if my project was all about flintknapping, I wouldn't be anywhere near the skill of Ötzi and his contemporaries after just a few months. Most of the other experiments of this project I have been able to fumble through, or complete in a simplified way, but this one is beyond what I'm capable of.

Watching videos of expert flintknappers, such as the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, I am blown away. Some people can bang out a perfect knife blade in a few minutes. What an amazing and useful craft! To make any available stone into a cutting edge really does set those people in a league of their own.

It is good to be humbled.