Making and using Skaill knives – new paper in Journal of Lithic Studies

Wednesday, January 28, 2026 (1:41 PM)

While the Ness of Brodgar is best known for its exquisite stonework, the excavations also uncovered simple tools that were part of everyday life.

Skaill knives are recurring finds at Neolithic sites across Scotland. These simple handheld stone tools are created by striking a large flake from a sandstone beach cobble (see Figure 1). Although archaeologists have known about these tools since the 19th century, they have rarely been studied in detail.

Figure 1. Skaill knife from the Ness of Brodgar (Van den Dikkenberg et al. 2025). — Figure 1. Skaill knife from the Ness of Brodgar (Van den Dikkenberg *et al*. 2025).

In a new study, researchers from Leiden University, the University of York and UHI Orkney set out to explore how Skaill knives were made and used. The results appear in a new paper, Skaill knives from the Ness of Brodgar: An experimental pilot study exploring their potential for functional and technological analysis, in the Journal of Lithic Studies.

As early as the 19th century, the antiquarian George Petrie suggested how these knives might have been made. After observing his son throwing beach cobbles against the rocks, thereby breaking them open, he concluded that this must have been the manner in which Skaill knives were produced.

Although this method does work, it is unlikely to have been the main way these knives were made. The detailed analysis of a number of Ness of Brodgar Skaill knives from the Ness shows that the “impact points”, where they were struck, were carefully chosen. Experiments showed that these knives could be made using a more controlled technique known as bipolar percussion (see Figure 2). This notion was further supported by one knife that shows impact marks on opposite sides.

Figure 2. Replicating Skaill knives using bipolar percussion at the YEAR Centre in York.

The researchers also put replica Skaill knives to work, using them for tasks such as butchering, hide-working, bone-working and stone carving. Wear patterns on the archaeological tools did not point to a single, specific use. However, it could be observed that the Skaill knives displayed a variety of traces. Some showed extensive breakage along the edges, suggesting contact with harder materials (see Figure 3a). Others were heavily rounded suggesting contact with softer abrasive material (see Figure 3b). The rounding was often unifacial, which suggests these tools might have been used in a scraping motion.

Figure 3. Two Skaill knives, a) with extensive edge damage possibly resulting from butchering, b) with heavy unifacial rounding likely resulting from scraping a kind of abrasive material.

It has long been suggested that some of these tools were used for butchery. This could be the case for those with extensive edge damage but the rounded tools were likely used for a different purpose.

The study showed that Skaill knives were versatile, multi-purpose tools used for a range of everyday tasks. In doing so, it sheds light on the everyday activities of the people who lived and worked among the remarkable monuments on and around the Ness of Brodgar.