Per Storemyr GeoKultur

Cracked chert from fire setting. Photo: Per Storemyr

Recently I posted a preliminary report on our successful experiments with fire setting in the Melsvik Stone Age chert quarries in Northern Norway. For some curious reason German-speaking readers were not able to watch the attached video of the experiments, perhaps due to country-specific copyright infringements related to the music in the video. Sadly, “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash is obviously not for all! But here’s another version of the video, this time without good old Johnny: Burning Rock. Experiments with fire setting (without music). Continue reading →

Bonfires to crack up stone in the Melsvik chert quarry. Photo: Per Storemyr

In the Melsvik Stone Age chert quarries near Alta in Northern Norway there are dozens of extraction marks that are difficult to explain by other ancient techniques than fire setting. Hence within the Melsvik archaeological project, run by the University Museum of Tromsø, last week we experimented with fire in order to substantiate that it actually formed an important method of breaking loose small and big pieces of stone. The idea was that it is not necessary with big fires and high temperatures, but that small, controlled “bonfires” are enough to create high shear stress and cracking. In this way high temperatures greatly reducing the quality of the chert for tool making are avoided. It works! Here’s a preliminary report with video. Continue reading →