Fig. 250.—Lance-head, found in one of the Swiss Lakes.
Fragments of wooden staves have been met with which had been fitted into these spear-heads; they are slender, and shod with iron at one end.
The care with which these instruments are wrought proves that they are lance-heads, and not mere darts or javelins intended to be thrown to a distance and consequently lost. They certainly would not have taken so much pains with the manufacture of a weapon which would be used only once.
It is altogether a different matter with respect to the javelins, a tolerably large number of which have been found in the lacustrine settlements of La Tène. They are simple socketed heads (fig. 251), terminating in a laurel-leaf shape, about 4 to 5 inches in length.
Fig. 251.—Head of a Javelin, found in the Lacustrine Settlement of La Tène (Neuchâtel).
It appears from experiments ordered by the Emperor of the French, that these javelins could only have been used as missile weapons, and that they were thrown, not by the hand merely grasping the shaft (which would be impossible to do effectually on account of their light weight), but by means of a cord or thong, which was designated among the Romans by the name of amentum. These experiments have shown that a dart which could be thrown only 65 feet with the hand, might be cast four times that distance by the aid of the amentum. There probably existed among the Gauls certain military corps who practised the use of the amentum, that is to say, the management of thonged javelins, and threw this javelin in the same way as other warriors threw stones by means of a sling. This conclusion, which has been drawn by M. Desor, seems to us a very just one.
Javelins of the preceding type are very common in the trenches of Alise. In this neighbourhood a large number of iron arrows have also been found which have never been met with in the lacustrine settlement of La Tène.