190 STONE IMPLEMENTS, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PROUDFIT. 



helping him to gather up their arrowes, which were an armefall, whereof 

 he gloried not a little.'"* 



In passing over the fields of the district, the frequent occurrence of 

 a few chips of quartz, or quartzite, at places which do not otherwise 

 show any signs of occupation, calls to mind another statement by Smith 

 concerning the readiness with which the Potomac Indian prepared an 

 arrowhead for use. 



His arrowhead he quickly raiketh with a little bone, which he ever weareth at 

 his bracer, of any splint of a stone or glasse in the forme of a hart ; and these they 

 glew to the end of their arrows.* 



The term "arrowhead," as generally used, is applied to an implement 

 with a range of usefulness much wider than is suggested by the word 

 itself. It is a conventionalism, descriptive as to form, but not as to 

 use. Wherever a sharp, cutting edge or i^oint is required, either as the 

 tip of an arrow or the blade of a knife, the geueral form is the same. 

 By its wedge-shaped butt, or barbed shank, the point is easily secured 

 in place to serve the purpose of the hour. 



In the evolution of the arrowhead, invention confined itself mainly 

 to metiiods of hafting, and in this direction much ingenuity is displayed 

 in the variations of shank and base. It may be said with truth that 

 the arr)whead, considered in its use as a projectile, reached its perfec- 

 tion in the hands of primitive man, so far as form goes, and that only 

 in the matter of material was the point of the English archer's arrow 

 superior to that of the American Indian. 



That it was only after protracted use of the simpler forms that the 

 perfected arrow point was secured, goes without argument, but that 

 we can show the stages of this evolution is another and more doubtful 

 matter. 



The reason for this lies in the fact that the most highly finished 

 arrowhead must of necessity pass through the ruder forms in the proc- 

 ess of manufacture, so that if work on the modern arrowhead is sus- 

 pended before the implement is finished, we have an archaic type of the 

 same implement. The remains of an old village site will illustrate this 

 statement. From the chipped pebble without definite form, to the 

 rudely ovate point, and from that stage to the thin blade, all may be 

 found mingled together. Here rudeness in form is no evidence of an- 

 tiquity, it being but a necessary incident in the production of the im- 

 plement in any age. Catalogue No. 146G51, U. S. aS^atioual Museum, 

 a tray of eighteen quartz pieces, with flakes and chips, from the fields 

 at Bennings, will serve as an illustration. 



The course of any chipped implement, whether arrowhead or knife, 

 from the rock in mass to completion is the same. At each stage of 

 successive chippings the stone assumes the familiar forms (vhich have 

 often been mistaken for completed implements of a rude type and great 



* Smith's Worlcs, vol. 2, p. 427, Arber's ed. 



* Ibid., vol. 1, p. 68. 



