Early Mesolithic flint workers were skilled at making delicate tools from stone. They favoured good quality flint, which was sometimes imported over long distances. The techniques they used were economic, with many blades or elongated flakes being detached from a single block or ‘core’. The blades were often modified by trimming the edges to make other tools and then mounted in handles or hafts. Endscrapers were used for working animal skins, and knives were made for carving meat, bone, antler or wood.

The most characteristic tool type was the microlith (‘small stone’). They were made by notching a blade, then snapping it and shaping the end. Microliths in the Early Mesolithic are simple in form, usually triangular or with a single sharp point. They are usually about two or three centimetres in length. In Sweden, microliths have been found attached to an arrow haft. One microlith acted as the arrow tip, another as a barb. It has usually been assumed that this is how all microliths were used. However analysis of the wear on these tools suggests some were used for piercing and boring holes.

Larger tools were also made in the Early Mesolithic, such as adzes and picks, which would have had handles and would have been used for working wood.