A Knap In

February 18, 2023                                                        Most Recent Posts:
Silver Springs Campground                         Silver River Day #2-Monkeys
site 45                                                          Silver Springs: First Day on the River
Silver Springs Florida

SATURDAY FEBRUARY !8, 2023

What do I do on weekends if I don’t kayak the river??   Here’s on answer to that question. 

Today the Silver River Museum on the grounds of the campground was hosting it’s annual Knap In also known as Stone Tool Making and Prehistoric Arts Festival.  9 to 4 both Saturday and Sunday.   David and I had been to it years ago and found it interesting.  I had nothing better to do, so I walked on over.  The entrance fee was going to a good cause.

Walking from the campground through the parking lot to the museum.  I saw this.    I think it explains a lot.  But is this why you vote for a President? 

Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

As I was originally saying,
The Silver River Museum is a program of the Marion County Schools and provides both History and Environmental Education.   The grounds include a late 1800s Cracker Pioneer Settlement and other historical buildings. It has classrooms and the museum itself which houses historic artifacts from the area.   The Museum has a boat pick up spot at the end of a trail to the river for school groups to travel up river with an environmental educator.

The Knapp In is a special fund raising event for the museum.  It’s a very interesting gathering of people working in and  interested in primitive arts.
<aside – you can click on any picture to make it larger>

There were activities for people of all ages.
Here middle school, teen age and adults were learning to make arrowheads. This is knapping.  To use a stone to shape a piece of flint into an arrow or spear head.

Her gloves were too large for her and kept getting in her way but without them she might cut herself.

Other activities for all ages.

This turtle was my favorite of the pottery creations.
Notice the detail the creator has done.

It was a great place for families with all the above activities to try out as well as archery.  Better mostly for older children rather than toddlers or early elementary.

A member of the Seminole Tribe was demonstrating his work.  He builds authentic canoes from swamp cypress.

An activity for younger ones.  These two were having a great time.  Authentic ancient pestles.

These chickee huts are examples of Seminole housing.  They are constructed of cypress logs and palm leaves thatched roof woven together by vines or roots. Originally they had a raised floor.

There were also examples of other Native American dwellings, clothing and goods.  These would not be used in Florida but I guess would fall under the title of “primitive arts”.

There were vendors of food, not primitive or Native American,  and many kinds of goods.  A lot of knapping supplies were available.  I appear not to have taken any photos of those.

If this T shirt had been for sale, I absolutely would have bought one.

The Cracker Village on the museum grounds has gorgeous oak trees all through it.  This one is my favorite if I could be said to have one.

Some of the buildings of the Cracker Village were open.  On other week-ends the park offers tours of the village which is closed to the public Monday-Friday for Marion County School Programs.

Folks were using the village steps and porches to relax and take a load off.

This was described as Barefoot Willie’s cabin from the 1830’s.

Even smaller than living in an RV.

Blacksmithing was being demonstrated.  Love the Blacksmith’s facial hair.

How about that moustache!  Look carefully at the ends.

Strolling through town.

They had several programs and demonstrations throughout the day on both Saturday, the day I was there and on Sunday the last day of the event.  Such as:
An Atlatl spear throwing demonstration done by Ryan Gill, see below.
The Flint Knapping Lessons shown above
An Archery contest

I attended two classroom programs.  The first was a slide program and talk

on Hunting Bison with Clovis Points done by  Ryan Gill of  HuntPrimitive.com.  

Gill is a professional primitive weapons and tools builder.  He apparently has a lot of Utube primitive hunting videos and at this talk he showed his new documentary “Hunting With Clovis” in which a group he leads, dressed in primitive attire and using all primitive weapons and tools, takes down and cleans a full grown buffalo just as Clovis man is thought to have done. 

Gill has written a book The Secrets and Science of Primitive Archery and is the acknowledged expert in this field.  He is a professional consultant and builder for the Archeology Department at the University of Texas A&M University.  A great example of making your interest your livelihood.   The video can be seen from the website above.  Warning, it’s authentic and graphic.  The whole thing was pretty amazing.

The second program I attended was by Dr. Nancy White of the University of South Florida on 14,000 years of Prehistory in NW Florida.   Her area of expertise is Apalachicola River Valley Archeology. 

She studies the prehistoric and early historic peoples of this area and does annual field work in the areas shown on the map.  Her presentation was extremely interesting. 

Among her projects was one funded by National Geographic to study the ancient DNA in prehistoric human skeletal remains from a burial mound dating to Middle Woodland or Mississippian periods from A.D. 400 to 1300.  She also has a particular knowledge of the pottery of this area and ancient periods.

Wish you could have been with me Laurel.  Pretty sure you would have loved this.

I have to take my hat off to those who planned, sponsored and carried out this event.  There really was something for everyone.  It was unique and very educational.  Proceeds went to the Silver River Museum Educational Programs.