You may have seen James Payne, Executive Director of Fort Walla Walla Museum, giving flintknapping demonstrations during events. This is an early form of tool production that takes a practiced hand to replicate.

For this Museum After Hours presentation, he will be going deeper into the production of this lithic (Stone Age) toolmaking, specifically technology during the Ice Age. During his graduate research he investigated methods of lithic tool production techniques, refitting some of the 11,000 pieces of stone debris from a workshop in northern Maine. This revealed both a technology with parallels to the Upper Paleolithic of Europe and a caution on interpretations derived from experimental archaeology.

Museum After Hours is a free monthly lecture series that is open to the public. Please note that due to the Museum's winter hours, the presentation will begin at 4 pm.