Anasazi Cliff Dweller Arrow Replica SOLD

Here's a replica Anasazi/Cliff Dweller/Ancestral Puebloan arrow that's based on fragments that were found in the ruins of Mesa Verde in SW Colorado.  The fragments are on display in the Chapin Mesa Museum at Mesa Verde and I examined them in the summer of 2018.  The fragments were a mix of reed arrows with hardwood foreshafts and simple, one-piece arrows made from wooden shoots.  All the arrows were quite small and slim and could easily be mistaken as kid's arrows, but I've seen enough artifacts from the Four Corners area that I believe the arrows I saw were actually adult arrows for hunting. I'll get more into that later...let's examine the details of the arrow itself.  

This arrow is made from a slim piece of reed with a greasewood foreshaft.  A small Pueblo side notched point of blood-red jasper is secured to the tip with pine sap glue and deer sinew.  The fletch is wild turkey wing feathers that are tied on the front and back but aren't glued down.  The black spiral is powdered charcoal paint and copies the spiral applied to one of the arrows, though the original spiral was rather sloppily applied, so I made this one a bit cleaner and more presentable.  A hardwood nock plug has been added to the rear of the arrow and the string notch was then carved into the reed and wooden plug as though they were one.  The wooden plug made the nock crush-proof so the pinch grip could be used and the nock wasn't crushed when the arrow was drawn and shot.  The nock plug on original arrows was a small twig that fit just inside the reed, so I made the nock plug on this arrow the same way. This simple yet elegant arrow is a beautiful copy of the arrows used by the Cliff Dweller/Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners region of the United States.

This arrow is quite slim and small and is easily mistaken as a kid's arrow, but I believe these were big game arrows.  I've seen similar-sized arrows found in ancient Freemont ruins in Range Creek Canyon, as well as arrows from ruins in NW New Mexico and in southern California near Joshua Tree.  Those couldn't all be kid's arrows.  The reed that's found in the Mesa Verde region is quite small and slim, and if that's all those people had for weaponry, they had to make it work.  A shorter reed shaft is stiffer so it could handle being shot from more powerful bows and the addition of a hardwood foreshaft added weight for increased momentum upon striking the target.  These light arrows would leave the bow at high velocity, but even still, momentum was limited.  So the Anasazi shrunk the size of their stone points to concentrate the limited momentum into a tiny surface area.  This allowed their lightweight arrows to acheive lethal penetration on big game at close range. For added authenticity, the reed and greasewood used for this arrow comes from western Colorado.  Click photos for larger images.  

Arrow Specs: Reed with greasewood foreshaft, sinew wrappings and turkey wing feather fletch.  27 7/8 inches total length.      

 

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