i was at a prehistoric display in france. the "stone-age man" gave a learned talk about prehistoric life, (the spread of various types of man through europe, tools, burials, arifacts, animals he hunted etc etc he demonstrated flint knapping, manufacture of different flint tools, arms, and fire-making.
he knapped various shapes of flint, in a remarkable and skilled way to get scrapers, flat flakes, etc. he made a flint saw (which he used to cut wood) and demonstrated a cleverly-made wooden drill with a flint bit.
the fire-making was incredibly skilful and impressive. he struck a piece of adamantine with a flint onto a flat piece of bracket fungus, which resembled a leather rag. a glowing coal with smoke was produced in literally a few seconds, with maybe six strikes. impressive.   
the next demo was even better. using a fire-drill, he made a fire in well under 1/2 a minute. after less than ten seconds of drilling, he tapped the smouldering black sawdust onto a leather pad. he blew on it, then dropped it into a ball of dried grass, and had a flame almost instantly. the dowel of hard wood was cupped in a round stone with a hole, which enabled him to press the dowel down on the soft-wood board, which was notched along the edge. the hardwood rod was twirled on top of a notch, in which the glowing ember was formed by hot sawdust falling into the gap.

he showed us a bow with flint-tipped arrows, and then an atlatl. then he gave us a description and demonstration of the atlatl and the spear, which we all then tried against hay-bale targets. this was good fun, and showed the power of the atlatl compared to a hand-thrown spear. he had lots of atlatl darts and throwers in racks for people to use.

the next bit of the exhibition was a selection of photos of cave-paintings and artifacts, all locally found, about which he gave a detailed discourse.  finally, the children in the audience made their own cave paintings using original paints and techniques.
afterwards i thanked the guy for showing us the atlatl - he had until this point referred to it as a spear and launcher and was pleased that "atlatl" was known - he asked was there an atlatl society in ireland and i said no, but i knew about it in passing because i was a slinger - he said he had guessed i knew how to sling, because of the type of throw i had made with the atlatl - this was pleasing to hear, as luckily i had hit the target good and hard, with the unfamiliar weapon on my 3rd shot. 
i will post the details when i've found the leaflet, but this demonstration was entertaining and informative although you need to brush up on your french though - and go to france which is no hardship as it's a beautiful country

to l'homme prehisorique, merci bien - un jour agréable et instructif!

SV

it was fun - we were shown how it was done, but we didn't make fire or knap for ourselves. the only practical bit was the atlatl, and painting. the neolithic man showed us how to hold and aim the atlatl, although the throwers which the audience used had a little built-in bridge to keep the dart centred and were obviously more learner-friendly, being a bit shorter for use by children as well as adults. still, there was plenty of power available. easily a lethal punch.      
the demonstrations were good enough for anyone to give fire-starting a go, or knapping, and be on the right track. like any total expert, he made it look easy.  it would be a matter of getting the right wood, correctly seasoned, and of course the day of the demo was scorching hot and very dry. a windy november would have been a more serious matter.
he did say that the bracket fungus "horse's hoof" i think he called it, which it strongly resembled - could be used to store an ember and carry it about for some time, to be used whenever needed, but the exact details escaped my limited grasp of french
in response to a question posed by someone, he described a compressed air method, when a miniature wooden pump is made, in which tinder is placed and suddenly compressed. the friction of air will cause it to smoulder. but whether this was a european method, i didn't quite catch  - he certainly didn't have one to show us

we were allowed to examine and photograph the items - i have a few pics to post later

it was a great demonstration, and i would recommend it to any visitor to bruniquel which is a beautiful place by any measure

http://perso.orange.fr/ot-puycelsigresigne/pages/campement.htm ;

SV

sv wrote on Jul 31^st, 2007 at 5:36pm:

Ah, a fire piston. We had some discussion of that here already. It was an european method ca. around 1800 AD. But in South-East Asia it was used since a really long time.

http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1130912228/0#0
http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1172596936/39#39

Quote:

I am definitly interested.

[quote]it sounds difficult to make, as you would need an air-tight seal. plus a bit of accurate drilling.
[/quote]
lol you got that right. It's a real sod. Unless you've got an engineering quality drill rig - the only way you're going to get any joy is to line the hole with a metal tube - so far I don't have the metal tube :-)

The popgun might work - you'd need a very good seal on the open end.
If you look through the previous posts people have made fire pistons from all sorts of pipes and pistons. But even with a good piston - you still need to have some very good dry tinder at hand.

The fungus your neolithic bloke used is called ramshorn fungus in england it's one of only two native species that put on annual growth rings the other is daldinia concentrica - a round black fungus that grows on ash trees - if you've ever been in a wood you'll know this one by sight it has loads of other names - all of which currently escape me lol. Both, once dried can be used as tinder (allegedly lol).
The ramshown has so much wood in it that it's frequently used a a charcoal substitute for fires it's also very very tough and can grow to be pretty big.

The other really common bracket fungus that is frequently used on survival shows is the birch bracket. It's used for knife sharpening and also (I think) as tinder. Grows on dead birch trees (or dying birch trees lol)
   

btw you can get a very cheap and very lightweight spark-maker by getting an old clipper lighter and removing the flint-wheel and flint, which is in a small tube and can be replaced.  it'll fit in your jeans watch pocket or wallet

http://www.everyonedoesit.co.uk/online_headshop/Clipper_Lighter.cfm?iProductID=3...

SV

I disassembled a candle lighter where the gas was empty. The trigger can generate an electric spark. In a dark room it looks nice. I tried setting toilet paper in flame with it, but it didn't work. When I accidently shocked myself with it I felt almost nothing.

i can't send the pics - they're on my desktop but i don't know how to send them.
there's only 3 left, it was my wife's camera, so we now have plenty of off-centre castles and pictures of my kids   

if anyone wants them - an encampment, a roll of flint tools, and a bone atlatl hook - please pm me with e-mail or else leave instructions. if i put what they're called between the [img]s nothing happens, Doh!

SV

pics from france - let's see if this works