Obsidian-tipped Spears from the Admiralty Islands in the Oceania Collection of the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest

• DOI: 10.17204/dissarch.2023.5
• Publication Date: 2024-03-26T11:20:24Z
• Authors: Attila Péntek; Norbert Faragó
• Keywords: Papua New Guinea; stone tool utilization; Archaeology; knapped stones; lithic technology; symbolic meaning; CC1-960

The authors studied 36 obsidian-tipped spears in the Oceania collection of Museum Ethnography Budapest. In addition to describing objects from Admiralty Islands collected before 1897, paper provides a summary related ethnographic information, including technological and technical details spear point making characterisation obsidian raw material used.The blades used for points presented this study showed no sign standardisation (an indicator advanced blade technology) point-making process. According 19th-century sources, functional part was most important, much time effort were invested ensuring that effective weapons. Later, as decline, primary production ceased, manufacturers started scavenging old artefacts utilising waste by-products. As result, decreased size became more irregular, an increasingly large number included parts cortex, crust obsidian. After 1911, relative importance decoration increased, type standardised.The irregular shape thin, weak shafts with awkward curvature raise questions about whether actual At same time, artistic mounting sockets parallels suggest pieces likely status instead.