Yosemite National Park highlights Indigenous arrowhead crafting

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There is a simple reason why Indigenous arrowhead crafting has remained largely the same for thousands of years—if something works, it works. The earliest examples of these lethal tools date back around 74,000 years ago to Stone Age Ethiopia, but the skill is still practiced today by trained artisans around the world. Yet, the process isn’t only a matter of breaking rocks into sharp-edged projectiles.. As Yosemite National Park officials recently highlighted, there is more to this very specific technique called knapping.

Proper knapping largely hinges on choosing the correct stones. These usually include chert, flint, and most notably obsidian due to their surgically sharp fracture lines. Artisans then slowly and purposely break off flakes of rocks to shape them into not only aerodynamic arrowheads, but knives, scrapers, and spear points.

Interestingly, obsidian isn’t native to the Yosemite, yet the region’s Indigenous communities have prized the material for generations. The volcanic glass was introduced into the area via ancient trade routes that crossed over the Eastern Sierra’s Mono Lake in present-day eastern California near the Nevada border. Tribes separated by hundreds of miles relied on these and similar exchange networks to swap tool materials for animal skins, medicinal plants, as well as nutritious pine nuts and acorns.

Yosemite’s earliest Indigenous communities initially knapped obsidian into larger points for spears and spear throwers known as atlatls. As hunting technology evolved over hundreds of years towards a reliance on bows and arrows, the obsidian points shrank in size to make them more aerodynamic.

The national park celebrates the ancient tradition of knapping at its annual Knap-In event, which includes demonstrations, workshops, and other hands-on opportunities. While this year’s Yosemite Knap-In took place in August, numerous others are held across the United States throughout the year.