technique of striking flakes or blades from a large flint stone (core or nucleus) and the shaping of cores and flakes into tools. The most commonly used stone was flint (chert), a hard, brittle stone, commonly found as nodules in limestone areas, that breaks with a conchoidal fracture. Flint knapping began with the simple striking of one stone against another. Later methods include the use of antler and wooden strikers for both direct and indirect percussion, and bone and antler pressure-flaking tools.