Echoes in Stone: Rings Celebrating Humanity’s First Tools

Through these three rings, I seek to celebrate not only the ingenuity of our ancestors but also the enduring human drive to create, adapt, and leave our mark on the world. Alongside these contemporary pieces, the article also presents examples of stone tools and engages with experimental archaeology, a field in which archaeologists recreate ancient practices to deepen our understanding of the past. At its core, this exploration centers on flintknapping, using it as a lens to consider the relationship between materiality, process, and meaning.



An introduction to stone tools

This collection celebrates human ingenuity through the earliest form of technology: stone tools. This body of work includes three pieces: firstly, a flint arrowhead hafted into oak, made by flintknapping, the technique of striking stone to form tools, echoing Neolithic craftsmanship. Secondly, accompanying this are representations of a hammerstone, an essential in toolmaking, and thirdly, a reindeer antler, used to refine stone tools through pressure napping. Together, they honour the creativity and skill of early humans and the origins of innovation.

For over 2 million years, stone tools were used throughout human and hominin history, Acheulean tools 1.7 million - 250 thousand years ago, Oldowan tools 2.6 - 2 million years ago, with some tools even predating early humans. These tools developed over time and it is speculated by some that they became not only a functional object but a status symbol as objects became more intricate and decorative over time.


Furze platt handaxe - The Natural History Museum, London.


The largest handaxe found in Europe, which may have been a Neanderthal status symbol.
Handaxes were made over the longest time period and largest geographical range of any known cultural artifact, an astonishing prolific industry lasting more than 1.5 million years.
Homo erectus developed this acheulean design for handaxes in Africa around 1.7 million years ago. The design later spread to southern Asia and Europe and was adopted or reinvented by other human species.
Some scientists suggest that making large or unusual handaxes was a way of showing off, demonstrating skill to others in the group, such as a potential mate. 
A high-quality handaxe may have indicated good genes in the maker. If they could find suitable flint perhaps they were also good at locating food and shelter.  Expert knapping could reflect eyesight, coordination, and the ability to think strategically. 
Most handaxes usually measure 10 to 20 centimeters long, this one is so large it must have been held by two hands, meaning it was unlikely to have served a practical use.
/ Description of object on display at the Natural History Museum.



Stone Age tools such as handaxes, arrow heads, scrapers and knives were often made from flint. Flint's structure is a cryptocrystalline form of silica, meaning it is a very fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microscopic crystals of the mineral quartz, too small to be seen with the naked eye. This structure is similar to glass and it is characterised by its high hardness and ability to fracture with a sharp, glassy edge. The material must be:
- Homogeneous: made of the same material with few inclusions of other materials. 
- Isomorphic: with the same structure in every direction without stratification. 
- Brittle: allowing vibrations to pass predictably through the stone, causing it to fracture. 
- Flint and other similar types of stone fracture in predictable ways, which allows for the production of tools.

This was not understood on a theoretical level by people in the Stone Age; however, this did not stop them from working it out through trial and error and then passing that knowledge on to others. Learning how these objects are created can allow us to understand not only the items themselves but also aim to uncover the culture to which they are linked.



Experimental archaeology and my flintknapping experience

Butsa Ancient Farm


Seeking to deepen my understanding of this process, I attended a flintknapping course at Butser Ancient Farm, accompanied by fellow artist Mahal de Man, with whom I share a long-standing collaborative practice through our collective, Sirens. I first met Mahal while working at the Horniman Museum and Gardens, where we both shared a love of its collections of natural history and anthropological objects. Butsa Ancient Farm serves as a centre for experimental archaeology, exploring historical lifeways through reconstruction and practice. The site contains dwellings from different periods, Stone Age, Anglo-Saxon, and Roman, each inhabited by volunteers who engage visitors in discussions about past technologies and cultures.


Mahal de Man, Eddy, charcoal wall drawing, 2025 at the Art Station, Saxmundham.


Mahal’s practice focuses on themes of deep time, expressed through drawings of stone tools, text-based banners and collage. She is interested in the relation and contrast between the deeply personal and the universal


Mahal de Man, Flint Arrowheads Mahal de Man, Flint Arrowheads Cookham, pencil drawings, 2025. These arrowheads are part of the Cookham Abbey dig finds of 2024, and are now stored at Reading University for further examination.

You can find out more about Mahal's art practice here.


Our teacher, Jonathan Drymond, greeted us wearing handmade Stone Age-style clothing, a leather tunic, shoes tied with cord, and even a salmonskin bag. Jonathan is an experimental archaeologist and prehistoric skills educator based in Devon. He has been teaching and demonstrating flint-knapping and other prehistoric crafts for over 8 years, working with museums in the UK and internationally as well as working with school groups and living history projects. Jonathan studied Experimental Archaeology at Exeter University and Environmental Arts at Plymouth University. He is passionate about blending archaeological study with artistic expression. 

It took some time to understand the materials. Each strike sends a fracture through the rock, even if it doesn't break off; too many mistakes can make a piece unusable. Trying out different types of hits had different outcomes. I had to learn to consider the Hammerstone as an extension of my body, to know its shape and to understand how it would work if I held it in different positions.  


Handaxe, Geological Society.


This piece, which was on display at the Festival of Geology at The Geological Society, offers an excellent portrayal of the process involved in making a flint tool. The lines drawn on the surface of the flint illustrate the directions of the impacts that travelled through the rock during the knapping process, revealing the skill and precision involved in shaping the tool.

We were advised to exercise caution when discarding the pieces of flint we had been working on. This was necessary because it would be virtually impossible to distinguish our modern flintknapping debris from that produced during the Neolithic period. The material and techniques employed were essentially identical, making differentiation extremely difficult. Such confusion could potentially mislead future archaeologists and result in the misidentification of finds. Jonathan explained that, in the past, he had intentionally buried his experimental work alongside a plaque or marker indicating its date of creation. This practice ensures that, if the material is ever unearthed, its modern origin can be clearly identified, thereby preventing it from being mistakenly regarded as archaeologically significant.

I valued having Jonathan as a teacher, as he encouraged us to think about people in the Stone Age in ways I had never considered before. He emphasised the importance of exploring how the lives of marginalised and minority groups, such as people with disabilities, might have been during that time. Jonathan challenges the fact that much of our understanding of Stone Age life comes from researchers who are not themselves from marginalised backgrounds, and therefore may make assumptions about what people could or could not do. You can learn more about his work here.


Victoria King & Mahal de Man flintknapping at Butsa Ancient Farm, 2025.



Personal reflections

I have transformed the knapped piece of flint into a piece of jewellery as a means of establishing a tangible connection between the material and the human body. Left in its natural state, the materials would have remained largely unchanged, shaped only gradually by geological and environmental forces over hundreds of millions of years. However, through the intentional act of tool-making, it is imbued with purpose, meaning, and cultural significance, becoming extensions of human creativity and continuity. In reflecting on the symbolic nature of adornments such as wedding and signet rings, which serve as nonverbal forms of communication, I chose to create these works as rings to signify the wearer’s connection to humanity and its deep-rooted origins.

The selection of materials for this collection is integral to its conceptual framework, forming part of an ongoing dialogue between people, place, and the material world. The flint used for the arrowhead was sourced locally from Butser in the South Downs National Park, an area naturally abundant in this material, while the hammerstone employed in its production was discovered near the farm on Brighton Beach. Oak was chosen for the ring, reflecting a material readily available to Neolithic craftspeople; its durability and resilience make it particularly suited for hafting tools. The antler component was salvaged from the Scottish Highlands, a naturally shed by-product that would have been similarly utilised by Stone Age communities. The stone used to create a ring was found on a beach in Kent and echoes the hammerstone used in the creation of the arrowhead, reinforcing the interconnectedness of material, process, and place.
The technique of hafting, mounting a worked stone onto a shaft or handle, significantly expanded the range and functionality of tools produced in the Neolithic period. For the ring, I employed pitch, a traditional adhesive composed of pine resin, charcoal, and beeswax, to secure the arrowhead to the oak ring, effectively replicating ancient hafting methods. This material would have been identical in composition to that used in prehistoric toolmaking. The only deviation from authentic Neolithic practice was the use of artificial sinew, a contemporary substitute for deer tendon, employed here to replicate traditional stringing techniques.


Victoria King, Arrowhead ring, 2025.


Victoria King, Hammerstone ring, 2025.


Victoria King, Antler ring, 2025.


In creating this collection, I wanted to bridge the immense stretch of time between us and our ancestors, to hold in my hands the same materials they once shaped, and to feel that spark of ingenuity that defines what it means to be human. These rings are not just jewellery; they are small echoes of the first creative gestures, reminders of how making has always been a way of understanding the world and our place in it. Through stone, wood, and antler, I’ve sought to capture that dialogue between material and maker, one that began over a million years ago and continues every time we create.



>> Tincal Lab 2025

About the author

Victoria King is a London-based jewelry designer. She's a graduate of The Cass in BA Silversmithing and Metalwork. She has curated and exhibited at 32 exhibitions nationally and internationally. She is part of both Dialogue Collective and Precious Collective. She is also a technician at Central Saint Martin's, metalwork, woodwork, and digital fabrication

victoriakinglondon@gmail.com
@victoriakinglondon