Obsidian knives

FIGURE 24 Obsidian knife. A knife made of obsidian in Mesolithic times and found in Elmenteita, Kenya, which was heated in the distant past. The time of heating (3700 + 900 years ago) was determined by the fission tracks dating method (see Fig. 25). 

More than 10,000 years ago, the first developments in the field of metallurgy were made in the Near East. Until that time man had used tools made of wood, bone and stone and with these materials he was able to meet all his requirements for devices and tools. An example from that period is the knife made of obsidian, a shiny black, brown or grey magmatically formed rock. The material is very finely crystallized owing to rapid cooling and is therefore often called volcanic glass. By beating it with another rock, you can break off extremely sharp pieces, a property shared with the flint that was mined in the south of The Netherlands in prehistoric times (fig.2.1). 

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