finding stone tools

As a boy I was always looking for flint arrowheads where I lived, which was near the Berkshire downs in England. I never found any. Then when I was walking the Mackenzie trail in Canada I heard that it was possible to find indian obsidian arrowheads on the trail. Sure enough I, and the people with me, all found some great arrowheads. Then when I came to Egypt I saw the collection of stone tools a friend had made and then I was set. Every time I went to the desert I searched for flint knives, axes, scrapers and arrowheads- and I've found plenty. 

The strange thing is, now that I know I can find arrowheads and other stone tools, I have started finding them in England- even right in the middle of London on the south shore of the Thames opposite St Paul's Cathedral! The beach there is littered with flint nodules, one reason among many I am sure than ancient man would have settled there. I know now that many tools are crude knives made from napping two sides, or sometimes one side, of a flake. As long as there are chips contributing to an edge, which is still sharp, you have found a tool. The body of the flake can be unformed and look like a broken pebble.

I have also found tools in the many patches of bare earth around holes scraped up by rabbits along the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire.

The key thing is getting what some archeologist's call a 'search image' in your head. By pouring over pictures of the kind of tools found in your area, and, better, visiting local museums where they have such tools on display and where they were found, you can get a feeling that they are 'really' out there. That way you look with confidence.

When I started I never really believed I'd find anything and I only had a vague idea what an arrowhead looked like anyway. By converting that to a real belief and a precise mental image of what stone tools look like I have become successful. Get out and find that treasure!