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Artifact Transport by Migratory Animals and Other Means

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Robert F. Heizer
Robert F. Heizer*
Affiliation:
Department of AnthropologyUniversity of California
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Extract

Two recent papers, one by Arthur Woodward, the other by J. Alden Mason, have called attention to the transportation of artifacts by the process of animal migrations. The impulse for both of these works derived from the finding of an Eskimo arrowhead imbedded in the breast of a duck shot at Bakersfield, California. Similar cases from the states of Indiana, North Carolina, and Nebraska are on record in these reports. Undoubtedly there are other known instances, but these four should serve to illustrate the fact that sizeable migrating birds may import projectiles of outland origin from tremendous distances.

I should like to present some additional instances which have come to my attention. These deal chiefly with transport of artifacts by migrating sea mammals and fish. The larger sea mammals are peculiarly suited,to carrying weapon points, since they have a thick protective fat covering in which a projectile could remain imbedded without having a harmful or hindering effect on the animal's health or movement.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , April 1944 , pp. 395 - 400
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1944

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