tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108697142011-04-21T20:08:49.130-07:00sloanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500399607429590708noreply@blogger.comBlogger11100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10869714.post-1108544358802724852005-02-15T23:58:00.000-08:002005-02-16T01:04:06.250-08:00Today Audrey and I visited the beach near her house in Narragansett, walking along the sand and picking up some of the various naturally occurring beach objects, such as fragmentary shells, strangely bent pieces of wire - the remains of a complex incense burner, or some sort of mosquito coil? The camera too, was on tap for photovideo documentaefun.<br /><br />At one point the sand began to be pockmarked with many variously sized, smooth rocks and I was reminded of a tv show I'd seen about early stone toolmaking. One of the featured anthropologists had himself become an expert at crafting the tools and, in slow motion, the documentary footage demonstrated the delicacy with which he could smash two big rocks together. And so, with two big rocks in hand, I gave it a try myself. The weaker rock was revealed via a nice jagged crack across its side. Before long I'd made a few pieces of stone cutlery (notably a cute butter knife and something like a spear) and Audrey had chiseled away at a piece of basalt until she'd formed a divot to hold an orange stone (see picture).<br /><br />In the end, the astonishing thing wasn't so much that these things functioned in some way, but how satisfying it was to make our own toys, stone age or not.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/10869714-110854435880272485?l=outerbranch.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>sloanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500399607429590708noreply@blogger.com6