All the physical evidence of my glass "arrowhead" (here and here) points to it being obviously a deliberately flaked and used piece of glass. And yet the average impression, including my own, is that of course it is not real but just a coincidence.
This is an opportunity to take a close look at that sense of disbelief. It is quite similar to the disbelief that an Indian could have made a rock pile during the last 400 years. One main point of this blog is that Indians, at all times, have made stone constructions. We hear this, we believe it, yet we still do not - in our heart-of-hearts - really understand it. We are quite ready to abandon our own logic. For example, I do not think we grasp just how poor some Native Americans were. How can you be so poor you cannot afford a metal knife?
I am starting to think maybe glass arrowheads are not so rare - just like those pesky unbelievable rock piles. When I go poking around on "arrowheads.com" and "reddit/r/Arrowheads" a small number of other people report finding flaked glass at sites they usually prospect for older items. So it really is a thing.
1 comment :
Actually, a glass flaked knife will hold its edge longer than a metal knife - and it also won't rust! Some folks in Virginia who taught themselves how to knap set up a cottage industry selling freshly flaked obsidian blades to surgeons, because the incisions heal faster. So it's not a question of "poverty"!
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