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In January of 1938, the Lithic Laboratory for the Eastern United States was founded at the Ohio Archaeology and Historical Society, now the Ohio Historical Society. An article in Museum Echoes, the Society's newsletter, of the same month proclaimed its purpose: “to study the lithic materials (stone, flint, etc.) pertinent to the material culture of the American aborigines, and of methods and techniques employed in their utilization.” The article went on to explain that the reason for embarking on this initiative was simply that such a study had “been sadly neglected” by the field of archaeology prior and that finally undertaking it would help “throw light on the origin, relationships, migrations and trade routes of the ‘first Americans.’” An understanding of these “methods and techniques” and thereby the peoples that employed them was to be achieved by experimentation with flintknapping. While the basics of stone artifact production were known at the time, “the more refined techniques… continue to defy present-day skill.”
