British Neolithic Arrowhead Poster

This free poster explains the variety of arrowheads found in Britain during neolithic times. A high resolution version and more free posters can be downloaded from the site below.

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Leaf Shaped Arrowheads

Prehistorics reproductions of the wide variety of leaf blades style found in the UK.

Leaf Arrowheads are a diverse category of arrowheads which dominated the early Neolithic Era, are found in smaller numbers dating from the mid Neolithic and become quite scarce in late Neolithic. The decline most likely demonstrates their gradual replacement as more effective designs of arrowhead were created. 

Leaf Arrowheads can be divided into two broad types, oval and kite shapes, these can be both long and thin or short and wide. Some found can be very crude only basically shaped while others incredibly thin and delicate showing an immense amount of skill which were most likely status symbols as they were far to delicate to shoot. 

Left: Kite shaped arrowhead found in Wandsworth. Below: classic leaf design.

Lacking barbs leaf arrowheads are not as effective as later Neolithic designs but not being notched are easier to make. One suggestion is as the Neolithic farming evolution was taking place and knapping was changing from being a survival skill learnt to a basic level by everyone, to an artisan trade done by a specialists in a pastoral community, that the leaf arrowhead was a transitory arrowhead. As highly skilled knappers emerged the crude Mesolithic designs began to go out of fashion and the more aesthetic leaf arrowhead was introduced, being manufacturable in both cruder forms by basic knappers and highly skilled forms it fitted all for a period until knapping became entirely specialised.

Petit Tranchet Transverse Arrowheads

Petit Tranchet arrowheads are similar in design to Chisel Arrowheads however they are transverse. Transverse means they were knapped sideways. Usually arrowheads are knapped along the length of the flake, but with transverse arrowheads they go from one side to the other across the width of the flake. Also rather than being made from either a debitage flake or a custom removed flake from a prepared nodule they made from blade struck off a blade core. 

There is nothing as sharp as the edge of a newly stuck flint flake,  no amount of retouching can come even close to this level of sharpness, the Petit Tranchet design makes use of this. Designs that narrow towards a point retouching must always be done to shape them however the Petit Tranchet's unusual design allows the unmodified edge to be retained as tip. 

The advantage of a blade core industry is that blades can be turned into almost all flint tools, knives, drills, butchery tools, woodworking tools, leather working tools, sickles and hunting weapons, almost all knapping needs bar axes and adzes can be created from cores. This creates standardisation, a person need only carry a few blades with them and they can modify them on the spot to any tools. It also creates specialisation of industry where people can become highly skilled at producing at one kind of knapping. Petit Tranchets then coming from cores provide a blade based industry a quality easy to manufacture arrowhead, whereas any other design would require knappers with differing skills such as pressure flaking and bifacial knapping.

Making a Petit Tranchet from a blade is quite easy, but generating a blade to make one from highly skilled, in blade core industries this means division of the labour is possible, a specialist expert knapper will provide the blades then anyone can take them and make their own tools from them, with the case of hunters, that being arrowheads. This introduces many of the principles of mass production to flint tool making.

Neolithic & Mesolithic Petit Tranchet Arrowheads 

found in various places inNorthern Europe

    

Chisel Shaped Arrowheads

Chisel Arrowheads by Prehistorics

Chisel Arrowheads are a kind of flint arrowhead found only in late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Northern Europe. They are completely unique and nothing like them is found any where else in the world.

The trapezoid shape of the arrowheads are counter intuitive. Most arrowheads narrow towards the point and have sharp edges, chisel arrowheads widen towards the point. Experimental archaeology has shown however this design to be quite effective when used.

Prehistoric Knappers often took advantage of the natural sharpness of the flint edge when making these arrowheads using the unretouched edge as a tip and ones that show retouching on the tip may not have been made this way, just resharpened. 

Chisel Arrowheads found around Britain

British Oblique Flint Arrowheads

Oblique Arrowheads along with many other kinds are available from our website www.prehistorics.co.uk

Oblique arrowheads were first manufactured in the Mesolithic Era though they were often quite crude and consisted of little more than a basic triangle. The use of this type arrowhead continued through the Neolithic Era and to the early Bronze Age with designs getting more varied and sophisticated. Arrowheads of this kind are usually divided into two broad categories called Irish and British then subtypes after that. Irish Oblique Arrowheads tended to be longer and have no formed barb while the shorter British ones often had well defined barbs. Both British and Irish kinds are found in the UK.

   Left: Irish style..... Right: British style

Oblique arrowheads with a range of different 

stem sizes. Left no stem to right long tailed.

The two arrowheads on the left have no formed 

barb the two on the right have prominent barbs.

While most oblique arrowheads were made for hunting and shooting in England two high quality varieties have been found, in Yorkshire a style known as ripple flaked has been discovered, ripple flaking involves taking a series of regular long thin flakes across the arrowhead to create a decorative pattern. It is extraordinarily difficult to do and even modern knappers with modern tools cannot match the some of the prehistoric Yorkshire examples. Another variety is known as the Long Tailed Oblique, these are regular oblique arrowheads only a with an extremely long stem. This again requires great skill, not only taking a sufficiently large and flat flint flake off a nodule but sculpting it without breaking the stem. Perhaps the finest example of any Oblique arrowhead in the world was found at Marden Henge in Devizes, how the knapper got that stem so fine is a mystery. Long Tails are completely impractical for shooting and Ripple Flaking so special both were made for other uses than shooting, whether as an ornamental piece of art of great value to its owner, for spiritual significance or perhaps as grave goods. 

Left: Fine example of ripple flaked piece of flint found on the Yorkshire Dales, flakes 3cm in length and 

2-3mm wide have uniformly been taken across the surface of the piece of flint. No modern knapper could produce work this fine. 

Top Right: Long Tailed Oblique Arrowhead found at Marden Henge in Devizes, the finest example of these arrowhead types ever found. 

Bottom Right: Ripple flaked Oblique arrowhead found near Stonehenge with a very short stem.

An Oblique Arrowhead is hafted on to an arrow by cutting a groove along the wood. The stem of the arrowhead is them glued in that groove and finally it is bound with sinew for additional strength. 

Sources
Photos of original arrowheads from,
Past 66
Eternal Idol website
Bordley Township Project

UK Flint Knapping Forum

A great site,

The UK Knapping Forum is a site for UK Flint Knappers to meet and discuss things. It is friendly to new knappers and an excellent place to learn. It has extensive information of where to find resources in the UK, what to make and has a free video tutorials & books section. A great place al in all.

http://uk-knapping.forumotion.co.uk/