Two Deer (Don) Thurman of Solvang is a modern day flint napper who painstakingly creates knives out of stone. A Two Deer knife claims top dollar from collectors. --Two Deer's reproductions are made from the same raw material used by Native American tribes; the knife handle is out of deer or elk antler, and is attached to the obsidian blade with animal sinew. Two Deer's wife, Louise, cuts and sews each distinctly individual knife sheath entirely by hand.--

About four million years ago, some inventive cave dweller smacked a rock just so, used the resulting edge as a tool, and inadvertently pioneered a lithic technology that fueled human evolution. The flint knappers, those who chipped stones to make tools, left a heritage in which we all share, for if we go back far enough, each of us can claim ancestors who carved out a living with knives and points fashioned from the local rocks.

Though a handful of isolated tribes still rely on Neolithic tools for survival, most modern-day flint knappers make reproductions of knives and arrowheads because they enjoy the work and want to preserve the ancient techniques. Collectors from around the world support their efforts and pay top dollar for their modern stone age art.

Don Two Deer, a soft spoken man with unreadable blue eyes that dance with delight the moment he smiles, discovered flint knapping while rambling through the orange trees and grain fields of his family's Southern California ranch. Like many country boys, he felt the tug of the Native American way of life, especially when he'd chance upon arrowheads, pestles, and other mnemonic treasures buried in the dusty ground.

ìI would pick up arrowheads, the real McCoys, and play around chipping stones trying to figure out how they made them,î Two Deer laughs, running a hand over his silvery hair, then I went to high school and found out about girls and hot rods.

After service in the Marine Corps, including a hitch in Korea, Two Deer (nee Don Thurman) spent several summers decompressing in a hilltop cabin in Kern County, earning his keep by hunting game and mining small amounts of gold. Executive positions at an Orange County dairy, and later, a wholesale coffee company dominated his working life, but Two Deer never stopped shaping chunks of stone into points, always keeping his knapping kit close at hand in case he found a few minutes to get lost in one of his favorite pastimes.

Twelve years ago, Two Deer attended a rendezvous (an encampment of people re-enacting early 19th century life) where he met Long Bow, a descendant of the Yakima tribe, and the man who would become his mentor.

He took me under his wing and taught me how to make arrowheads that looked like arrowheads,î Two Deer remembers, his eyes thoughtful, his strong hands loose in his lap. He's in his 80s now and he's the warmest person I've ever known.

Long Bow stoked Two Deer's passion with practical tips and quiet counsel, instilling in him the sense that both craftsmanship and a contemplative lifestyle inform the discipline of flint knapping. He showed him how to read the face of a stone and fracture it with a clean strike, how to use the point of an antler to lift precise flakes from chunks of jasper, agate, flint, and obsidian.

Two Deer, whose name came to him one magic day when his bullet brought down two deer at once, prefers to ply his craft in the mountains under a tree, for he finds that he focuses best amid the soothing sounds of nature. He respects the flint knappers' code, that it's unethical to pretend modern work is anything but a reproduction, by meticulously collecting discarded flakes and burying them with a contemporary coin to let diggers five, or 500, years hence know their exact vintage.

Settling in Solvang in the late 1980s with his wife, Louise, Two Deer placed some of his work in the Nordic Knife Shop where he found a ready market among history buffs and discerning buyers. He recalls that a particular piece, a gem of a knife made from limpid laboratory-grown quartz crystal, was purchased by one of the most famous collectors in Japan.

Two Deer gets the raw material for his knives, daggers, and arrowheads at rendezvous events, gem and mineral shows, and hunting expeditions, plus people bring me rocks all the time. He prefers obsidian because it is readily available and easiest to work, but he sometimes uses chert he has found at the beach even though it is harder than Hell's hubcaps and requires heat tempering.

He secures his blades to antler hafts with sinew that he shreds and rolls by hand, and marks each finished piece with two tiny, perky, stick figure deer. He builds display stands from polished wood mounted with antlers, mostly deer and caribou, oriented so the striated tines can support shining crenulated blades of yellow jasper, inky obsidian, and milky white agate shot through with orange streaks. Each is a unique work of art rendered with the oldest of techniques.

Always humble about his abilities and respectful of his craft, Two Deer relates an experience that demonstrates the contemporary appeal of flint knapping and the fact that it doesn't matter who keeps it alive, just as long as somebody does.

ìI did a demonstration at a mall, of all places, and as I worked I noticed this big Indian guy eyeballing me. Afterward, he came toward me and I thought, Oh boy, now I'm in trouble, but he just said ì always wondered how those guys did that.

Standing in his tidy workshop beside a wall crowded with photos, memorabilia and a sign that reads Neo-aborigine and Self-unemployed,î Two Deer slips into his denim apron and chuckles when asked what he calls this art he does, these mounted arrows, feathered lances, and collectible knives.

I call it fun, he replies, and prepares to smack a shiny rock just so.