Prehistoric Butchery
We wanted to find out more about the thousands of flint tools in our museum stores, which date from prehistoric times - about 5,000 years ago.
A butcher uses flint tools to cut venison
These include axes, knives and scrapers and would have been used by prehistoric people to skin animals and cut up their meat.
Our challenge was to see how such tools would compare with the knives used by today’s butchers, but 5,000 years in the ground meant the blades had lost their sharpness.
John Lord, a flint-knapper based in Norfolk, agreed to make us some replica flint tools to use in our project, during one of his demonstrations at the museum.
We then approached butchery students from Thomas Danby College in Leeds to be our partners in this project and they agreed to try out the tools.
The tools proved as effective as modern-day knives
At first, they weren’t convinced about how good the flints would be for butchery, but once they tried them, found they worked extremely well. They were able to skin a deer carcass, then cut up the meat into joints.