Making and using stone tools: Advice for learners and teachers and insights for archaeologists

Gaining experience with stone tool technology can be an important part of professional archaeological training as well as a valuable learning experience in its own right. This paper summarizes its author’s insights gained from making and using stone tools and from teaching these skills to college students for more than two decades. It argues that teaching stone tool production and use to a wider audience will, in the long term, provide a baseline against which to measure archaeological lithic variation.