in this video we will show you how to make one the most ancient styles of arrows ever discovered by archaeologists arrows in this video will be based on artifacts found in the peat bogs of southern Sweden and date to the Mesolithic period which is over ten thousand years old these arrows were tipped with a series of micro lists or micro blades which is an ancient Stone Age technology that utilizes blades taken from a stone core the first step in producing these razor sharp stone blades is to establish a flat platform which will become the top of your core you are then ready to remove blades along the side of the core using either a hammer stone or an ant or billet so here's the results of our reducing the core obsidian that we had the flakes started out kind of large and irregular shaped and as we continued they reduced in size but they also became more uniform elongated I could have gotten a lot more uniform shapes if I did pressure flaking along the edges I just use a hammerstone and antler billet just to get the basic concept I'm still learning this form of flint knapping technology I started out learning with the by face technology where you've established a centerline and then reduce maths on both sides there's flaking patterns all along the piece with these blades it's just a single flake that is razor sharp on the edges here's a trapezoidal flake a flake that was ran on top of two other flakes and this edge is the sharpest edge in the world it's far sharper than any knife or surgical scalpel and as you can see as we reduce this core down to basically nothing left these tiny little blades that came off are called micro blades or micro lifts and thousands of years ago all across the world they use these as tools for sickles for cutting grass and also they tipped arrows with these so I'm going to show you some of the most ancient arrow artifacts ever found that still have arrowheads mounted to the shafts I'm using these micro lifts and micro blade technology some of these ancient micro lift tipped arrow artifacts were mounted onto a shaft of hazelnut the first step in reproducing this style of arrow is to find a chute of hazelnut that is arrow size length the next step is to scrape off the bark and begin straightening the shaft while it is still green and flexible then set the shaft aside to let it season to form the knock of the arrow for the bowstring cut a groove using a stone flake archaeological evidence shows us that ancient people use several different methods for attaching these micro blades to their arrow shaft the most simple method was to simply attach the blade to the end of a blunt arrow shaft using natural black adhesives such as pine pitch glue or burchett are these ancient archers not only tipped the end of their arrow with a stone flake but also attached a micro lift blade along the side of the arrow using the same natural black adhesive glue this method of tipping an arrow appears to be very crude but was a simple way for ancient people to produce hunting arrows with minimal effort another ancient method of tipping an arrow is called a transverse arrowhead which is a trapezoidal shape flake with a straight tip these flakes were put into a groove and secured with black adhesives such as birch tar or pine pitch glue they were then wrapped with wet sinew to further secure them this style of Arrowhead was used throughout Europe between 8,000 and 4,000 BC one example of a mezzo lithic era arrow was discovered by archaeologists in 2009 in the peat bogs of southern Sweden this ten-centimeter fragment of arrow was mounted on a hazel shaft and had a deep V groove running along the side which held four micro live blades these four micro lathe blades were glued into the groove using pine pitch resin an additional fifth micro blade was found near the tip of the arrow and likely served as the arrows point archaeological evidence shows us this style vero is used to all kinds of large game a skeleton of an Oryx which is an extinct species of wild cattle was discovered with micro lift blades found amongst its bones I was not able to find a Mesolithic arrow artifact that still had its fletchings attached so for this arrow I'm going to use a Neolithic method of fletching the arrow examples of this ancient style of fletching arrows includes arrows found in the melting snow patches of Norway and the arrows found with the frozen body of boot CD Iseman in northern Italy begin by covering the back of the arrow with natural adhesive such as pine pitch resin or birch aquitar glue then attach the feather fletchings with the heated glue and further secure the fletchings with a spiral wrapping of either wet sinew or stinging nettle thread you now you have an ancient style of arrow that was used by mezzo lithic hunters more than 8,000 years ago