Primitive Technology, This is How It Can Be Mastered

Heck, there’s some great video’s on youtube, I’m not talking about the cute cat video’s (Although I’ve heard it’s moved on to cute dogs now) I’m talking about video’s that we’re interested in, survival, primitive living, making tools, etc.

Outdoor Revival will be producing more video’s over the coming months, but until they’re out, there’s plenty of other amazing vids. We’ve collected some of them here for this article. Imagine this…

The apocalypse is here. There’s no electricity, gas, coal, tap water and you’re thinking ‘Why didn’t I prepare?’

Well, you might as well do it now before it is too late. I am not talking zombies here, it doesn’t have to be a nightmare like that to create a situation where you need to rely on your skills and knowledge to survive, even if it’s just for the short term.

On YouTube, there are many videos that can teach you how to relearn those long lost skills. If a picture paints a thousand words a video must be in the millions so have a watch, they’re not very long, but they will give you a great understanding of what’s involved in primitive living and get you started on practicing the skills for yourself. We’ve ordered them as they were released for viewing.

Making a Stone Axe

I’ve got an axe head that I knapped about 8 years ago so I know how much work goes into it, mines made of flint. First, you will need time: lots of time and patience. Starting with a rock as close to the shape you need for an axe head, you then need to get a hammer stone which is another stone of hard rock to hit your first piece, breaking off pieces by force.

The handle is more simple, although still time consuming to make. Using whittling and fire, you’ll eventually end up with an axe that can cut down a tree.

It does look very Flintstones, but it’s solid and effective. Now that you have a good axe, remember to keep it sharpened.

The Sling

Man cannot live on sweet potatoes alone (See the next video!), so time to create a tool that can help you catch those pesky animals.

Stripping plants down to get the fibrous strands, you can create a simple braided sling which is amazingly effective, the key is to make it strong enough to resist the forces generated by flinging a rock. Then it’s time to practice and practice until you can hit a stationary object, such as an unsuspecting rabbit. Slings are a true hunting tool.

The Garden – AKA The Sweet potato patch

When you need food on a longer term basis it could be time to create a garden. You need to place it somewhere sunny regardless what crop you grow. If it’s an area that’s protected from the wind all the better.

In the video, he’s planted sweet potatoes, many different vegetables will grow in touch conditions, you need to think about how much nutrition you get back from your veg and let that help you choose what to plant, Kale is a very good vegetable if it’s available, it’s full of nutrition.

A plot is marked off and then a fence built to protect and indicate where the garden is. Wood ash is sprinkled on the garden, and he adds leaf litter before planting his sweet potato seedlings. It’s important in the wilderness to fence your garden due to wild animals, such as deer, that see it as an easy snack.

A Shelter – Grass Hut

It took a week to build this shelter due to a lack of grass, it will be faster if you have a look around to see what your environment offers and maybe change some of the materials if you need to.

The grass used to build a grass hut is the long dried grass you see in forests and on the sides of the road and in fallow fields, it is not the lush green grass growing on your front lawn, you would be there for years if you tried t use that.

This is a long term shelter and can be sized for an individual through to a family, or more than one can be constructed for a larger group. It offers security, improved protection from the elements and the cold, it’s a heatable space and can be used for storage.

Saplings and bunches of the dried grass are the main materials. It is clean and tidy, and you could line it with mud to make the inside safer for when you have a fire.

A Spear Thrower

Another hunting weapon that takes time to master, with all these things you’ve got to accept that you’re going to miss often and you’re working on a low percentage success rate, but it’s still worth it because it’s food.

Some primitive people used to use stone weights on the shafts of the spear to increase accuracy and impact force.

This is easy to make and effective.

It’s well worth your time to master some of the primitive skills of our ancestors, they survived in ways that we wouldn’t anymore, but we can relearn the skills and knowledge they used to pass on from one generation to another.

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We live in a beautiful world, get out there and enjoy it.

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