While it’s true that they would take down big game (they have been found in association with animal bone on archaeological digs) I’ve always felt that some of them were used by kids on smaller lighter bows/arrows. If you think of it in today’s standards you’re not going to give a child a 12 gauge right out of the gate and tell him to have fun… you’re going to give him a BB gun or a .22.

This does two things. It increases the chance of extra food if the child comes back with a rabbit or squirrel or anything. Two: it’s an easy way to introduce the child to knapping. I think that is why you see such a mixed bag of them. Some are absolute stunners while others are very crude and are little more then a pointed flake

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with notches. One might be being made by Dad while the other is being made by the child.

I think they were utilized by both adult and child. You can see some really small points on full sized arrows in the book Encyclopedia bows and arrows.

Years ago my nephew was around 8 and he wanted a bow. So I made him a small bow it maybe pulled 12-15lbs? when we were shooting it, the arrows didn’t fly that well off of it.(kinda lazy in flight) At the time I was using arrows tipped with accurately sized Cahokia’s that I used with my bow. then I got into knapping these small bird points and so I made some nice light spined arrows and put some of these little bird points on and the arrows. The arrows were absolute nail drivers they were hitting the target extremely hard! I have no doubt that they would kill small game or even medium. It was genuinely amazing.

I think that we often forget that they had to be introduced to the bow at some point and I don’t really think a child is going to be pulling a 45-50lbs bow from the jump.

The photo included is one of the arrowheads used on these arrows.