(p. 55) Let’s take the oldest technology of all: a flint knife or stone ax. Well, it turns out you can buy a brand-new flint knife, flaked by hand and carefully attached to an antler-horn handle by tightly wound leather straps. In every respect it is precisely the same technology as a flint knife made 30,000 years ago. It’s yours for fifty dollars, available from more than one website. In the highlands of New Guinea, tribesmen were making stone axes for their own use until the 1960s. They still make stone axes the same way for tourists now. And stone-ax aficionados study them. There is an unbroken chain of knowledge that has kept this Stone Age technology alive. Today, in the United States alone, there are 5,000 amateurs who knap fresh arrowhead points by hand. They meet on weekends, exchange tips in flint-knapping clubs, and sell their points to souvenir brokers. John Whittaker, a professional archaeologist and flint knapper himself, has studied these amateurs and estimates that they produce over one million brand-new spear and arrow points per year. These new points are indistinguishable, even to experts like Whittaker, from authentic ancient ones.
Source:
Kelly, Kevin. What Technology Wants. New York: Viking Adult, 2010.