It wasn’t soon before we were asked to have a go at making something a little more recognisable, a scraper. After an initial lesson from Allan we were soon busy creating our own scrapers from the flakes taken from the recently knapped tabular flint. Above, Matt is just striking his flake, creating an edge that isn’t too sharp, but sharp enough to remove (for example) hair from the hide of an animal

Above is Matt’s scraper placed in the recently de-haired area of the hide, the scrapers were very effective. A usable scraper could be produced very quickly and with little work, but with practice it would be possible to make one in around 30 seconds. Along with the scraper on the hide, is a hollow scraper that was made to strip bark from the stick that is laying along side the hide.

After a lunch break we were back and ready to have a go at making string from nettles,that would later be used on our knives we were yet to make.

We were lead to a hedge line full of nettles. We were then shown how we were to select and pull out nettles with our bare hands (some people had wisely brought gloves) and then remove the leaves and stingers with a swift action. Once we’d selected, pulled out and cleaned our nettles we moved onto the next stage of the string making process and most of us had managed this without stinging our hands as well!