Although I am not quite prehistoric, I have been knapping flint for over thirty years and can replicate any type of ancient flint implement using only the materials and techniques that were available to the people of that time.

I first encountered the noble art in 1976 during a weekend prehistoric archaeological course at Oxford, lead by Nick (now Professor!) Barton.  Amid all the lecture-style sessions, Nick held a brief practical knapping session, demonstrated basic flaking techniques, gave us each a flint nodule and a hammerstone and I was immediately hooked.  That was the only coaching I have ever had - thereafter I learned by looking at genuine artefacts in museums' collections and working out what their makers had been doing, what problems that had encountered and how they had tried to solve them.  Then, it was just a matter of practice, practice and more practice. 

After a few years, the archaeological society that I was associated with asked me to give them a demonstration, to help members better understand the flint artefacts that they came across in digs and field-walking.  One of the people at the demonstration was the curator of the local museum, and he asked me to do a similar session at the museum for members of the public.  Word got around the archaeological community, and since then I have done more than 150 demonstrations and exhibitions for various archaeological organisations including the British Museum, the Museum of London, Surrey Archaeology, East Sussex Archaeology and Museums Parternship, the Institue of Archaeology, the Prehistoric Society, the Lithics Studies Society, Flag Fen and the ASNAPIO archaeological park in France.

Making and using flint tools is very visual, and well-suited to television.  I have appeared on two ITV programmes - "Ridge Riders" and "Living in the Bronze Age" and was featured in an edition of the BBC's "Meet the Ancestors" series called Hunter of the Plain, where I made a few flint-tipped arrows and shot them from a replica of a prehistoric bow.  Here I am with the film crew.

I also made the bows and arrows that were used in the BBC's "King of Stonehenge" programme.

In 2005, flint-knapping reached Fleet Street and the Daily Telegraph featured it in a weekend edition of the paper.

When I began to learn, there were probably fewer than ten practicing flint knappers in the UK.  Happily, numbers have steadily grown since then, and I am very pleased and proud to have coached more than three hundred people to get started, many of whom have gone on to become experts themselves.  

I still do a lot of knapping for my own pleasure, but when I am demonstrating or coaching I always have three aims: 

• to help people understand and appreciate the lives of their prehistoric ancestors
• to make it an enjoyable and fun experience for audiences and participants 
• to enjoy myself!

Come and see me sometime!