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Stone tool
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==Modern uses== Stone tools are still one of the most successful technologies used by humans.<ref name=conv2018>{{cite web | last=Gorman | first=Alice | title=Australian archaeologists dropped the term 'Stone Age' decades ago, and so should you | website=[[The Conversation (website)|The Conversation]] | date=27 August 2018 | url=http://theconversation.com/australian-archaeologists-dropped-the-term-stone-age-decades-ago-and-so-should-you-47275 | access-date=24 January 2022}}</ref> The invention of the [[flintlock]] gun mechanism in the sixteenth century produced a demand for specially shaped [[Flintlock_mechanism#Flints|gunflints]].<ref>Flayderman, 1998{{full citation needed|date=May 2020}}</ref> The gunflint industry survived until the middle of the twentieth century in some places, including in the English town of [[Brandon, Suffolk|Brandon]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Clarke |first1=Rainbird |title=The Flint-Knapping Industry at Brandon |journal=Antiquity |date=2 January 2015 |volume=9 |issue=33 |pages=38β56 |doi=10.1017/S0003598X00009959 |s2cid=162918829 }}</ref> [[Threshing board]]s with lithic flakes are used in agriculture from Neolithic, and are still used today in the regions where agriculture has not been mechanized and industrialized. The [[Ohlone]] people of the [[San Francisco Bay]] area see modernization in their social environments, and the stone tools([[mortar and pestle]]) they used in the past are now collected by their descendants, in remembrance of the past histories.<ref>Skowronek, R. K. (1998). Sifting the Evidence: Perceptions of Life at the Ohlone (Costanoan) Missions of Alta California. Ethnohistory, 45(4), 675β708. https://doi.org/10.2307/483300 </ref> Glassy stones (flint, quartz, [[jasper]], [[agate]]) were used with a variety of [[iron pyrite]] or [[marcasite]] stones as [[Fire making|percussion fire starter tools]]. That was the most common method of producing fire in pre-industrial societies. Stones were later superseded by use of steel, [[ferrocerium]] and matches. For specialist purposes [[Glass knife|glass knives]] are still made and used today, particularly for cutting [[thin section]]s for [[electron microscopy]] in a technique known as [[microtomy]]. Freshly cut blades are always used since the sharpness of the edge is very great. These knives are made from high-quality manufactured glass, however, not from natural raw materials such as chert or [[obsidian]]. Surgical knives made from obsidian are still used in some delicate surgeries,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Harris |first1=Kristen M. |title=Glass Knife Making |url=https://synapseweb.clm.utexas.edu/glass-knife-making }}</ref> as they cause less damage to tissues than surgical knives and the resulting wounds heal more quickly. In 1975, American archaeologist [[Don Crabtree]] manufactured obsidian scalpels which were used for surgery on his own body.<ref name=conv2018/>
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