That's Eric of "Eric's Rocks" in the last pic above.
All he sells is knapping material and always has a fantastic selection.

Steve Watt is an archaeologist with the Schiele Museum and  founder of this event.
He has always asked that only aboriginal tools be used at this knap-in.
No "copper boppers". Although, since there is archaeological evidence at Cahokia
that copper-tipped Ishi sticks were used, those are accepted.
It is Unbelievable what these guys can do with nothing but a set of three
different sized hammerstones or a couple a big wooden billets!
At some point Saturday morning Steve will give a short lecture on some subject related to use of stone tools.
This years subject was "Axes" and, as always, was an education on the subject.
Another archaeologist, whose name I can not remember but will look for,
has been doing experimental research on how the hole in a piece of wood for an axe handle might have been made
and gave a demonstration of his findings, which was very much appreciated by all
considering the considerable amount of time it took to do all the experimenting!

Here's a quick swing around the lecture group.

I brought some of my "better" local rhyolite to wow them a little bit but as it turns out
they were duly impressed but had seen it all already and had some stuff that wowed me!
The first pic is of two large blanks made by Rocky out of some of our local "rhyolite".
A good example of the extreme variation in local lithic rock types.
{There is an atlatl made out of the material on the left pictured later in this report.}
Sunday morning I sat in the cool mottled sun and watched Rocky make the point in the second pic
as I drank my coffee. Then he gave it to me.
It's almost 3 inches long made out of Burlington chert and he left a little vug with drusy in the base.

Louis Jones, my most favorite NC artist, was there.
He isn't painting as much these days and has been making reproductions of all kinds of native artifacts
out of native North Carolina materials.
I forget where the dark gneiss came from for the mortar and pestle in the first pic
but the banded argillite bannerstone on the atlatl in the second pic is from Chatham County.
And the atlatl in the last pic is made from the same material as Rockys' big blank
pictured above and is from the Asheboro area, Randolph County, NC.

Excellent report Joe!  Those pieces are works of art.  Sorry I couldn't make it out there, my family had other plans and wanted me with them.  Looks like you had a good time.  Thanks for sharing -- great pictures too!

Scott

Great field report. Amazing knapping. Beautiful craftsmanship and talent displayed there.