A Day in Arti (Part 2)
As the conversation and meal came to an end and the sun began to set, the people started leaving the rock shelf to return to their sleeping places.
My father asked my mother to come with his group. She refused him flatly.
"When the dry season is over, I'll think about it. Quick Foot."
She drew a hard line and took me back to the trees immediately, building a small fire at the base of the trunk.
The night of Homo erectus is quiet and terrifying.
When the sun goes down, we hide our bodies and build fires right away.
Because we know that without it, we won't survive until morning. And because fire is the greatest shield that protects us.
But a campfire isn't that bright.
The flickering light strains the eyes more than expected, and the shadows grow deeper, making any large movement difficult.
So even though the sun had set, those who hadn't fallen asleep usually spent the time preparing for tomorrow.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
My mother was twisting plant fibers into cord.
Cord is important.
I wasn't sure whether the things I'd passed down from my previous life still remained, but cord had countless uses and was hard to make, so having plenty of it was never a problem.
Watching her, I took out my hand axe.
The hand axe, made from flint I'd found by chance, was actually part of a series of preparatory exercises meant to practice making the tool I wanted.
What I learned from dying once was this — instead of worrying about the future, surviving in the present was what mattered.
Dying hurts a lot.
'I really don't want to die again.'
I set the hand axe on the anvil stone I'd prepared in advance and struck the center striking point with the knocking stone.
Thwack!
A large flake broke off with a crisp sound.
I'd collect the fallen flakes separately, but they weren't for my use.
What I wanted was the center of this hand axe.
Thwack! Thwack!
With each successive strike, flakes fell away, and the hand axe grew thinner and sharper.
"Ugh!"
I failed a few times along the way.
What remained in the end was a stone tool roughly the size of two fingers — shaped like a thick right triangle, suitable for stabbing and cutting.
I could have stopped here and used it as a point, but what I wanted was a shape a little further along.
I carved the underside of the stone blade to a pointed edge, forming a tang, and carved a groove where cord could be tied.
"…Pretty Eyes? If you carve it like that, it'll be hard to hold."
"I know. Just watch."
Homo erectus are smarter than we think.
They know how to twist fibers into cord and make tools. They know how to process hides into simple bags and clothing.
These people, who can even make hand axes — sophisticated stone tools — why didn't they put handles on their tools?
The biggest reason was probably the absence of adhesive.
You could bind two objects together with sinew or cord, but such bindings lacked strength and would loosen with even minor shocks.
By contrast, just applying adhesive fills the microscopic gaps, and combined with cord, it holds two objects together with remarkable firmness.
I held the finished stone blade up to the firelight, examined it, and then set it down carefully.
Then I pulled out the hardened sap from the rabbit skull I'd caught earlier and the acacia tree resin I'd found along the way.
The substance commonly known today as gum arabic was more yellowish and cloudy than transparent, and scratching it with a fingernail produced a white powder.
…Weaker than hide glue, but…
To melt fish bones and scales, you'd need to make a kiln, and I wasn't sure it was worth the effort.
I rolled it between my fingers.
What I was making now, compared to the adhesives in a modern person's memory, would make you sigh.
Instant glue? Epoxy? I wasn't expecting anything like that.
To be honest, holding this in my hand reminded me all over again just how insane "civilization" was.
But it was the best I could make with what was available right now.
I placed the hardened resin into the rabbit skull and carefully tapped it with a wooden stick.
Tap, tap, tap.
At first the lump was hard as stone, but it crumbled into finer pieces, then transformed into a mixture of yellowish and whitish crumbs.
I spit some saliva into it and stirred it slowly with the stick. The powder began to clump together like sticky mud.
If it's too thin, it runs off. If it's too thick, it won't seep into the gaps.
When it reached the right consistency — clinging to my fingers but not falling off — I pulled fine charcoal from the edge of the fire and crumbled it.
Crackle.
The charcoal turned to powder easily under my fingers.
I mixed in a bit of fine dirt.
The resin cracks when it dries, so if left as-is it breaks easily. But with charcoal dust and soil mixed in, the adhesive prevents the resin from cracking and becomes hard as stone when it sets.
Once the ingredients were evenly mixed, I brought a suitable stick close to the fire and slowly heated the mixture.
If the flame is too close, it just catches fire.
After all, this is essentially material that could be used as a torch.
With slight heating, the mixture melted into a sticky mass, and I could see it fusing into a single solid piece.
Before it hardened, I scooped it out and rolled it into a round lump on the tip of a branch.
It looked exactly like the ones I'd made countless times during experimental archaeology back in the modern era.
Adhesive: Complete.
With this alone, the scope of tool-making expands enormously.
You can hang a stone blade on the end of a spear, or bond two pieces of hide together.
Next was making the handle.
I cut a suitable branch and split one end into a Y-shape.
The wood had been prepared in advance, so I only needed to shape the joint.
The flakes that had fallen off while making the blade proved useful here.
Just because a piece is discarded doesn't mean it's useless.
Rather, thin sharp flakes like these are far better than a hand axe for scraping wood, cutting hide, and carving grooves.
I held a flake carefully between my fingers and scraped the tip of the branch little by little.
Shh, shh, shh.
The dry bark peeled away, revealing the inner wood.
I scraped that part again until I'd carved a narrow, deep groove just the right size for the stone blade's tang to fit into.
If it's too wide, it wobbles. If too narrow, the wood splits.
I tested the fit over and over — wedging the stone in, pulling it out, scraping again.
Working with nothing but the strength of my fingertips and a small blade, it was no surprise that even a small mistake meant bloody fingers.
"Aiyah."
"If you get hurt, don't do it."
My mother said it as if it were obvious.
I sucked the blood from my finger and shook my head.
"It's something that has to be done."
Luckily, I managed to finish the groove.
I applied a thick layer of black adhesive to the tang of the stone blade and pushed it into the groove at the tip of the branch.
Thunk.
As the stone went in, adhesive squeezed out on both sides.
I pressed the oozing parts down with my fingers to fill any gaps, then quietly took the cord my mother had twisted.
"…"
My mother looked at me with disapproval, but I avoided her gaze.
"Just a little."
My mother wore an expression of disbelief.
But she didn't take the cord away.
I wound the short cord around the spot where the stone met the wood — the groove and the branch.
One loop, two loops, three loops.
The still-wet black adhesive seeped between the cord fibers, binding the wood, the stone, and the cord into a single solid mass.
If I had sinew, I could tie it even more securely, but obtaining sinew would require more refined tools.
Once the cord was wound sufficiently, I applied another layer of adhesive on top.
I melted the adhesive slightly over the fire, applied it, then pressed it down firmly with my fingers until it became one solid piece.
"Done."
I held the object in my hand and held it up to the firelight.
The blade was uneven since I'd flaked it freehand, and the handle wasn't exactly ergonomic, but—
It was unmistakably something that could be called a stone knife with handle.
My mother's eyes went wide as she looked at the thing in my hand.
"What is that?"
"I tried putting a handle on it so it's easier to grip."
When I handed it to her, she felt it for a moment, then deftly used it to snip the cord she'd been holding, and nodded.
"It is definitely easier to use this way. But… what's this black stuff?"
"I applied it to hold it firmly. This way it stays sturdy and lasts a long time."
As if to demonstrate, I gripped the blade and handle and pulled with all my strength.
The stone blade and handle, fixed with adhesive and cord, held firm.
After watching for a moment, my mother handed me her hand axe.
"Make mine too."
I took her hand axe and set it down.
"It'd be better to find new stone for this one."
The hand axe my mother offered was the one she'd exchanged for a firm stone that morning.
Beautifully chipped from quality stone, it was far too fine to re-chip.
And the stone itself wasn't the kind that chipped delicately.
"If I can find flint or obsidian, I'll make you a new one."
Flint is the best stone for tools, and if there's obsidian, it's the ultimate.
My mother nodded at my explanation.
When my mother started twisting fibers again and making cord, I lay down inside the tree and turned the stone knife over in my hands.
Then my mother spoke to me.
"Pretty Eyes."
She called me softly.
I turned my head.
She was still twisting fibers.
Plant fibers were being rubbed, twisted, and braided between her palm and thigh into a single cord.
In the firelight, her fingers flickered red and black.
"Can you make a lot of those?"
"If there's material."
It takes time, but it's not hard to make.
She thought for a moment, then picked up the adhesive I'd left in the tree.
"Can you teach me how to make this?"
I was genuinely impressed by that question.
She'd immediately understood what was most important about making the stone knife with handle.
"It's simple. Take resin from a thorny tree, add fine dirt, charcoal, and saliva, mix it into a paste, and melt it over the fire. It becomes sticky."
"Hm, sounds difficult."
"I'll show you how I do it later."
It's really not that hard — just grind the ingredients and apply heat.
I explained where to find the resin lump, charcoal dust, and dirt, following her gestures step by step.
My mother listened in silence, then scraped the adhesive from her fingers with her fingernail.
The hard black lump didn't come off easily.
"So tomorrow, let's go find good stone."
After a moment's thought, my mother nodded.
"There must be someone here who has good stone."
I nodded and looked down at the stone knife in my hand again.
A small, crude thing.
Just a knife with a wooden handle. But next it would become a spear. Then an axe. And someday, it would change these people's lives themselves.
Of course, before any of that, I had to survive.
'So… please, let this life last a little longer.'
I held the stone knife against my chest and leaned my back against the tree.
But I didn't know then — I had no idea how much ripple that small stone knife would carry.
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[Reconstruction of Ötzi's Dagger and Sheath]
This is a reconstruction of the flint dagger from the belongings of "Ötzi," a man who lived approximately 5,300 years ago during the early Bronze Age in the Alps.
The dagger featured a flint blade set into a groove in a yew wood handle and firmly bound with animal sinew.
The sheath was made from inner bark of pine and could be hung from a belt.
Notably, while the arrows found alongside him used adhesive derived from birch tar, no adhesive was detected on this dagger.
The exact reason is unknown, but given that the dagger's blade was very small and showed signs of repeated re-sharpening, it's possible that adhesive was not used to make it easy to maintain or replace the blade.