A
knapper is a person who shapes
flint,
chert,
obsidian or other stone through the process of knapping or
lithic reduction to manufacture
stone tools, strikers for
flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing walls, and
flushwork decoration.
Knapping is done in a variety of ways depending on the purpose of the final product. For stone tools and flintlock strikers chert is worked using a fabricator, such as a hammerstone, to remove lithic flakes from a nucleus or core of tool stone. Stone tools can then be further refined using wood, bone, and antler tools to perform pressure flaking.
For building work a hammer or pick is used to split chert nodules supported on the lap. Often the chert nodule will be split in half to create two cherts with a flat circular face for use in walls constructed of lime. More sophisticated knapping is employed to produce almost perfect cubes which are used as bricks.
In cultures that have not adopted metalworking technologies, the production of stone tools by knappers is common, but in modern cultures the making of such tools is the domain of experimental archaeologists and hobbyists. Archaeologists usually undertake the task so that they can better understand how prehistoric stone tools were made.
