Fig. 80, of a buffalo skull found in North Dakota many years ago, and belonging to the Historical Department of the State of Iowa, illustrates the penetrating power of the flint arrow-head. This is a long, slender arrow driven into the skull, so that the point penetrated the brain. Fig. 81, a skull from California, Mr. H. K. Deisher’s collection, Pennsylvania, illustrates a human skull in which an arrow-point was driven into the brain through the frontal bone over the left eye. I have seen in museums human vertebræ and other bones which were pierced by flint arrow-heads. Such may be observed in the Ohio State Archæological, the Peabody, and United States National Museum collections.
In the American Anthropologist for 1901 Dr. Thomas Wilson wrote an article entitled “Arrow-Wounds.” This is deserving of preservation and will enable students to realize what an important factor the arrow was in ancient times. I omit all of Dr. Wilson’s remarks on discoveries of human remains in foreign countries in which arrow-points were embedded, and quote a portion of that which relates to the United States:—
“The skull of an ancient Indian man of advanced age, originally received by the Smithsonian Institution from Dr. L. G. Yates, of Alameda County, California, and transferred to the Army Medical Museum, exhibits a wound made by a long flint arrow-point which penetrated the left orbit.
Fig. 91. (S. 1–2.) Fine broad spear-head. Material: brown flint. Stephen Van Rensselaer’s collection, Newark, New Jersey.
“The arrow-point exhibited belongs to the class usually called perforators, or drills, but in this instance it was used as an arrow-point.
“Two specimens of prehistoric flint arrow-points or spear-heads found inserted in human bones were sent to the National Museum by Dr. John E. Younglove, of Bowling Green, Kentucky. One had pierced the pelvic bone and the other is still inserted in the head of a human femur. The material of both points is the black or brown lustreless pyromachic flint, common to the country in which it was found. The specimens came from a cavern about four miles northeast of Bowling Green, and an equal distance from Old Station.
Fig. 92. (S. 1–1.) Showing relation of specialized leaf-blade implements of various kinds to the original blade.
“Most of the specimens of arrows and arrow-wounds in the Army Medical Museum pertain to modern Indian warfare. The arrow-points of iron or steel show, by actual experience and ocular demonstration, the effect of these projectiles upon bones, the endurance of the patient, and the skill of the surgeon; consequently they are of considerable interest. They also show that none of the arrow-points were poisoned.