Snowflake Obsidian Clovis - Part 1 of 5: Rough Biface to Rough Preform
Channel: Prehistoric Living
Date: 19/02/2019

My sister-in-law gave me this block of Oregon snowflake obsidian as a wedding present. Better than any present I could have asked for, am I right? I used a big hammerstone to get a few nice spalling flakes off for larger projectiles and knives, and a smaller one to get some decent flakes for smaller arrowheads. I turned a couple of those into a pair of small earrings, another into a Snyder's kind of point for a necklace, and the big one into my first Agee point. 

This video starts off at the rough biface stage, after I had used the raw block as a core for spalling flakes, and after taking some shaping flakes off to get it as flat as possible for the next steps. Parts 1 and 2 are this stage of reduction, while parts 3 and 4 are the indirect percussion biface thinning that takes it from rough preform to final stage preform. In part 5 I just show a bit of the pressure flaking (I don't want to bore you too much yet, maybe in a later video) and the flute removal, which ***SPOILER ALERT*** does not turn out well at all... But it makes a good teaching opportunity so I posted these videos anyways, because flintknapping failures are educational too. I learn something every time I break a piece. 

Check out the other videos in this series:
Snowflake Obsidian Clovis - Part 2 of 5: Rough Biface to Rough Preform - https://youtu.be/a5ztMlaZinc

Snowflake Obsidian Clovis - Part 3 of 5: Rough Preform to Final Stage Preform - https://youtu.be/MKqcc_sHwio

Snowflake Obsidian Clovis - Part 4 of 5: Rough Preform to Final Stage Preform - https://youtu.be/Ep3xcjz4C3U

Snowflake Obsidian Clovis - Part 5 of 5: Finishing, Fluting, and Failing - https://youtu.be/IgRV7LDeSJQ