Making a Stone Burin — The Engraving Chisel That Enabled Bone and Antler Work

The burin is a specialized stone tool with a narrow, chisel-like cutting edge formed by striking thin slivers (burin spalls) off the end of a flint blade. Unlike a knife edge which is thin and fragile, a burin edge is supported by the full thickness of the blade behind it, making it strong enough to engrave, incise, and groove hard materials like bone, antler, ivory, and hardwood without snapping. Burins first appear in the archaeological record around 40,000 years ago in the Upper Palaeolithic and are one of the defining tool types of that era. They made possible the entire bone and antler tool industry: without burins, there would be no bone needles for sewing tailored clothing, no barbed antler harpoon points, no eyed needles, and no decorative engravings on bone and ivory. The burin technique is a secondary modification applied to an already-knapped blade — the maker starts with a finished blade and then removes one or more narrow spalls from the end to create the working edge. Different burin types serve different functions: an angle burin (spall struck from one corner) produces an asymmetric edge good for incising grooves, while a dihedral burin (spalls struck from both sides meeting at a ridge) produces a centred edge ideal for splitting bone lengthwise. This blueprint teaches both types.