From what I have seen, most of them were nowhere near as concerned with how things looked, over how they functioned, as we are today.
I was considering having a friend make me a set of six points, inspired by the post where the knapper made six almost identical points, to be mounted on sassafras shafts, to go with my red oak bow.
Gonna be a while before I am able to to do so, if ever. I learned how not to try to remove a central ridge that runs from the base to the tip, yesterday. Not how to do so successfully, how not to do it. I worked until my hands are sore today, and I produced a couple of spalls with cortex that were shaped a little to hold as cutting tools.
I took a chunk of beautiful black flint, spalled the outside off, producing three to four inch spalls that ran the way I intended. It had a large hump on one side, so I tried to reduce that, exactly as I had watched it be done. When I struck the billet, it took out a piece about the size of a good sized arrow head, and left a pocket almost an inch deep where it pulled out, pretty much destroying a piece of absolutely top grade material that knaps like butter. Might make gun flints now!
Would have taken a sledge hammer to remove a piece that big from most of the material I work with, so I practiced spalling off the gray to white cortex on some petrified wood. I am not sure the strike would have even bothered the petrified wood.
Overall, I am far too heavy handed to this point for good material. I put all of the really good material up, away from me destroying it to learn! The petrified wood will make stunning points, if I ever learn how to do so successfully.
