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Identifying struck flint

The signatures of knapping.

Deliberately struck flint shows a bulb of percussion, ripples, and a striking platform — features nature rarely produces together. Frost-shatter “pot-lids” and plough strikes lack the bulb, and a fresh-looking break on an otherwise patinated surface is modern damage.

Retouch (fine secondary flaking) along an edge indicates a tool. Form suggests function: scrapers carry steep retouch around an end, blades are parallel-sided, burins have a chisel-like spall. A silky gloss along one edge can be sickle sheen from cutting cereals.

Patination — white, blue-grey, or honey discolouration — and gloss suggest age but are not proof; they vary with soil, not just time.

Record the raw material, the diagnostic features you can actually see, and the findspot context. “Struck flake, retouched, undated” is a sound record; a period label needs the typology to earn it.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on stone

Identifying worked stone — Flint, marble, and hardstone.

Identifying obsidian — Volcanic glass tools.

Identifying hand axes — The Palaeolithic multi-tool — pear-shaped, worked on both faces.

Identifying scrapers and blades — The everyday flint toolkit — and how retouch separates tool from waste.

Identifying microliths — Tiny geometric flints that armed Mesolithic arrows.

Identifying polished stone axes — Ground, smoothed, and traded across whole continents in the Neolithic.

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