
THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST 


VoL. XXXVI. January, 1902. No. 421. 


PREHISTORIC HAFTED FLINT KNIVES. 
CHARLES C. WILLOUGHBY. 
Tue question of the function of the stone implements 
commonly called arrow and spear points has been a vexed 
one. There are few references by early writers to the use 
of chipped flint by the American Indians for other purposes 
than as points for projectiles. It is very probable, however, 
that a majority of these implements were used as knives or 
cutting tools and were attached to short handles of wood or 
antler. 
Major Powell found such knives in use among the Pai Utes. 
Colonel Ray collected similar implements from the Hooper 
valley Indians of California, and there is in the Peabody Museum 
at Cambridge a finé collection of leaf-shaped jasper blades fas- 
` tened with pitch and cord wrappings to short handles of wood. - 
These were obtained from the Klamath Indians of southern 
Oregon. 
The finding of a few similar tools with wooden hafts still 
attached in prehistoric burial caves, cliff houses, and graves, 
shows that such implements were in use in prehistoric times 
over a large portion of North — Prof. F. W. Putnam 


