Friday, November 16, 2012

Many of These Things are Not Like the Other

There are a few words that I really can't stand that are thrown around a lot in society. These are words that shouldn't be used for various reasons. For me though the most heinous of all is the arrowhead since it is used in the scientific community as well.

The word itself doesn't bother me, as there are many true arrowheads that are found at archeological sites. What bothers me is that it is used for describing many different projectile points and sometimes just stone tools in general. There are many different forms of stone tools as follows:

  • Bi-faces: blade on both sides held in the hand and used for making things, killing animals and warfare (picture below)
  • Arrowheads: a head of an arrow made from stone and nothing more. As you can see in the picture about they are clearly made for fixing on the end of a wooden shaft.  
  • Spearpoints: a stone head for a spear used in battle and hunting
  • Other stone tools: some were very rudimentary and used for variety of things such as cutting meat, cloth, skin, plants, etc. 

Now keep in mind those are my definitions and are very general terms. I could probably right a whole book on each on of them (and it has been done by others) and how they are made. Stone tools have always fascinated me since they can tell so much about a society; this is especially true about early hominids.  

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