Early Native American Skills Day

Today at Dunbar Cave State Park there will be an Early Native American Skills Day.

You can go and learn how the Prehistoric Indians spent their days, hunting and surviving. There will be Atlatl throwing competitions, blow darts, basket weaving, and my husband David will be doing demonstrations on Flintknapping, which is the name for how they built their tools.

I am so proud of him for first not just taking an interest in this art but studying it, understanding the ins and outs of it and then perfecting his art in it. Its hard and painful work. His hands some days look a bit like shredded leather in places. To give you an overview, the early Indians would find a piece of chert (flint) and chip away at it using sawed off deer antlers and another large rock as their tools. They would lay a piece of leather across their leg and work this rock into arrow heads, or spear points, and other pieces of weaponry to hunt, skin, and fish with.

If you live near this Park and are interested the event starts at 10am and goes until 3pm.

http://www.tennessee.gov/environment/parks/DunbarCave/