62 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



poraneously with these arrow-heads. There is no testimony that the 

 Chinese themselves ever made practical use of flint arrows, and if we 

 want to suppose such a period in their culture, it must certainly be 

 far back in times antedating the invention of writing. It will therefore 

 be more reasonable to argue that these flint arrow-heads were inciden- 

 tally found by Chinese, and that some one with antiquarian tastes 

 had these characters engraved in them. This would not be an unprec- 

 edented case, for there are numerous examples for such procedures. 

 Especially in the K'ien-lung period (173 6- 1795) when a mania for 

 antique scripts broke out, numberless genuine ancient objects fell 

 victims to this fashion and were covered with date-marks and other 

 inscriptions of archaic style. Bronze swords and other weapons, tiles, 

 and jades were the favorite objects of such improvement, so that this 

 period is apt to become the crux of the archaeologist. The text of the 

 editors says: "Arrow-heads with points of stone and inscribed. They 

 are certainly objects of great rarity {lit. not easily seen or found). 

 The two upper specimens were obtained by Yeh Tung-k'ing; the one 

 below by Kuei Wei-ku in Ming-fu (ancient name for Ning-po)." As 

 shown by the black ink, the reproductions were made by means of 

 rubbings and accordingly teach nothing about the character of the 

 surface of the specimens; we only receive a glimpse of their outlines 

 which are presumably correct. We are surprised at the gracefully 

 elegant shapes of the two upper specimens, as are rarely, if at all, 

 found in flint arrow-heads; they convey the impression that they are 

 imitations of bronze arrow-heads, to which also the long tangs seem to 

 point. Indeed, when glancing over the pages of the Kin-shih so, I had 

 many times taken these illustrations for bronze arrow-heads, until 

 the reading of the editorial comment convinced me of my error. The 

 twin tips in the upper specimen on the right are also striking, and I 

 am not aware of any analogous example to this phenomenon in other 

 flint arrows. The lower specimen seems to be a lance-head rather than 

 an arrow-head. The two brothers Feng were immensely capable and 

 ingenious archaeologists, and it would be unfair to suspect that they 

 became the victims of a mystification in this case. While I am inclined 

 to regard the characters as epigone additions, 1 I think of the objects 

 themselves as authentic, but as having been made in a bronze period 

 as reproductions of bronze arrow-heads presumably for use as amulets, 

 as far as the first two are concerned. 



As regards stone hatchets, we saw them mentioned by Tu Wan 

 in 1 133 a. d. But there are some earlier records of such finds. 



1 These are not forgeries in Chinese estimation, but improvements or embellish- 

 ments. 



