Transverse Arrowheads From Northern Europe

PAGE 1
TRANSVERSE

ARROWHEADS
MESOLITHIC & EARLY NEOLITHIC MICROLITHIC INDUSTRY
NORTH & WESTERN EUROPE
6,000 B.C. TO 3,000 B.C.
PAGE 1 OF 2 PAGES

HAFTED TRANSVERSE ARROWHEADS ON ARROWS
NORTHERN EUROPE

The hafted arrow points in this picture are computer generated and are not a picture of a physical artifact or artifacts. But the illustration is useful in showing how these broad-edged stone projectile points were hafted onto wooden arrow shafts. The word transverse, as it is used to describe transverse arrowheads, basically means a straight line crossing from side to side. The term refers to the straight cutting edge on the tip of the arrow.

ABSTRACT:

TRANSVERSE ARROWHEAD
MESOLITHIC AND EARLY NEOLITHIC PERIOD
NORTH AND WESTERN EUROPE

This article illustrates and describes a few examples of a unique style of trapezoidal shaped stone projectile point from northern Europe known as transverse or transversal arrowheads. They were invented sometime during the Mesolithic period with the development of the microlithic industry. The points illustrated in this article probably date to the late Mesolithic period and continue for a short time into the Early Neolithic period. In north and western Europe, transverse arrowheads were in use sometime between 8,000 and 4,500 years ago. They have been found on Mesolithic sites in Germany, Poland, Belgium, France, England and Portugal. Transverse arrowheads are considered true microlithic stone tools. These microlithic tools were made from small snapped off segments of core blades.
All the transverse points illustrated in this article were borrowed from one collection. They are believed to have been found on one or more sites in northern Europe, probably within the country of Denmark.

Obviously the "pygmy industry" cannot represent the sole efforts at flint-chipping of any Stone Age community. For unless Tardenoisian man was the size of a squirrel, he would have needed flint implements of the ordinary size for ordinary purposes, using the "pygmies" for such special purposes as they were intended to serve.---1921, R.A.S. Macalister.

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TRAPEZOIDAL TRANSVERSE ARROWHEADS
NORTHERN EUROPE
PRIVATE COLLECTION

TRANSVERSE ARROWHEADS
MESOLITHIC AND EARLY NEOLITHIC PERIOD
NORTH AND WESTERN EUROPE
PRIVATE COLLECTION

The above statement about the "pygmy industry" by Macalister in his chapter on the Mesolithic period in "A Textbook of European Archaeology" in 1921 concerns the microlithic industry. At that time the archaeologists of the day were still trying to understand what the little geometrically shaped "minute splinters of flint, rarely measuring so much as an inch in length", were used for. Some theories at that time suggested that they were used for surgical instruments, tattooing or maybe even arrowheads. The latter theory we now know to be accurate for at least some varieties of them because at least two or more have been found still attached to the ends of arrow shafts. Microliths are now generally interpreted as elements of hunting equipment. The term "microliths" is a convenient descriptive term that has been accepted world-wide for lithic industries that produced small stone implements that measure approximately 3 cm (1 3/16 inch) or less. The most common forms of microliths are believed to be projectile points and barbs for arrowheads and harpoons. They were also mounted as side blades on sickles and scrapers. Early descriptions of Mesolithic period microliths described them as "pygmy flints" and Tardenoisian flints".

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TRANSVERSE ARROWHEAD
MESOLITHIC AND EARLY NEOLITHIC PERIOD
NORTH AND WESTERN EUROPE
PRIVATE COLLECTION

This trapezoidal shaped transverse arrowhead was obviously made from a segment of a core blade. Three blade removal scars can clearly be seen on the surface. The opposite side is smooth with only one flake scar that was caused when it was struck off the core. This arrow point measures 7/8 of an inch (2.2 cm) long. The material is probably heavily patinated Danish flint.

Transverse arrowheads are oddly shaped. They don't look anything like everyone's traditional idea of an arrow point that has a sharp point on the end with cutting edges on the sides. Transverse points have no pointed ends. They were made for piercing along a sharp segment of a blade edge rather than by a sharp point. This style of projectile point is not unique to the Stone Age. Transverse arrowheads made of iron were also used by later cultures. One example for this is the Luchaze tribe in north western Rhodesia.

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"REFERENCES"

1921, "A Text-Book of European Archaeology", Vol. I The Paleolithic Period, by R. A. S. Macalister, pp. 535, 536.
1928, "Our Prehistoric Ancestors", by Herdman Fitzgerald Cleland, pp. 81-84.
1959, "The Prehistory of Southern Africa", by J. Desmond Clark, p. 195.
1966, "Aboriginal Man In South And Central Australia", Part 1, by B.C. Cotton, pp. 204-208.
1988, "Encyclopedia of Human Evolution & Prehistory," by Ian Tattersall, Eric Delson & John Van Couvering, pp. 335-338.
1996, "The Oxford Companion To Archaeology", by Brian M. Fagan, pp. 467-469.

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