“It is also in these game districts that what is known as the ‘bevel-edge arrow-points’ are found, that have been a subject of much discussion as to their use. (See Fig. 21.) Foster says of the one he has illustrated: ‘The specimen represented is from Professor Cox’s collection, and the two edges are symmetrically beveled, as if to give it a rotary motion.’ I have met many others that accept this idea, unmindful of the fact that a ship is not steered at its stem, but by the rudder at its stern, and an arrow is not directed or held to its course by its point, but by the feather at the butt end of its shaft; and if a rotary motion was required, it would naturally be given by placing the feathers spirally around the shaft. The broad flat sides of these beveled points would neutralize any effect from the short bevels in passing through the air.
“I have heard it urged that they were reamers, and that the uniform bevel being in one direction, to cut as reamers they would have to be turned to the left, or, as our workmen say, ‘against the sun.’ From this it has been argued that the people who used them belonged to a left-handed race. The direction and uniformity in the bevels is to me evidence of exactly the reverse. Among all the points we find they are the simplest and easiest to form by chipping when laid on their flat. Nothing but the down pressure of the flaker is required to separate a chip from a flat at a forty-five-degree angle. Suppose a flake that had been roughly shaped held flat on a block of wood by the fingers of the left hand, the tool in the right hand chipping from the point to the broad end by direct down pressure; then by turning the flake over and working the other edge in the same manner, we have in a centre cross-section a form resembling a long-stretched rhomboid with sharp cutting serrated edges at the acute angles.
“With the wooden bow and arrow arose the necessity for an arrow-point harder than wood. If bone was used, the pebble scraper was essential. The river drift or gravel bars, when subjected to the grinding and crushing action of drift-logs or rolling boulders, would furnish many suggestive forms and shapes that a little ingenuity would apply, and out of which would naturally grow the art of flaking.
Fig. 54. (S. 1–1.) Long implement, convex base, sides almost straight. E. E. Baird, Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
Fig. 55. (S. about 1–5.) A group of knives typical of central Ohio. J. A. Rayner collection, Piqua, Ohio.
“The streets of Paducah, Kentucky, are paved with partly rounded, angular, silicious gravel, mostly of jasper. Seeing heaps of this ready for spreading, I was struck by the many forms, mostly highly water-polished, that if found on a flaking-ground would pass for refuse flakes and rubbish left by the workmen.
“On inquiry I was informed that this coarse gravel was from banks on the Tennessee River above the ordinary overflows. I selected many forms that any archæologist would pronounce to be the work of man.
