Stone Arrow Heads

Abstract

THE interesting investigations of Mr. Redding on the method of making the above objects, as referred to in NATURE, vol. xxi. p. 613, have been somewhat anticipated by Mr. Paul Schumacher, “Methods of making stone weapons,” Bull. U.S. Geol. and Geog. Survey, vol. iii. p. 547, 1877, which again was a translation from an earlier publication in Archiv für Anthropologie, vol. vii. p. 263. Mr. Schumacher's information was derived from the last arrow-maker of a tribe of Klamath Indians, and appears to correspond generally with that obtained by Mr. Redding from the representative of another tribe in the same region. Mr. Schumacher states that obsidian is not the only stone used, but chert, chalcedony, jasper, agate, and similar stones of conchoidal fracture. “The rock is first exposed to fire, and, after a thorough heating, rapidly cooled off, when it flakes readily into sherds of different sizes under well-directed blows at its cleavage.” The process is also illustrated in Mr. Schumacher's paper. Superior stone mortars are often found in use amongst these Californian Indians, who deny their capability of making such objects, and account for their possession as “finds” either on the surface or beneath the earth, and describe them as the work of another and previous race.