THE LEARNING CENTER
What is an Impact Fracture?
Contributed
by member Eric Wagner - "python"
Photograph's by member
Randall "Pear" Bauman.
Impact fractures can best be described as a
flute or strip of material that was cleanly sheared from a
projectile point. This type of damage occurred in arrowheads,
spear
points, atlatl tips and any other point type that was propelled
at game.
The damage occurred when the projectile point struck something hard such as a rock, tree or even bone of the game being hunted. The damage occurred on impact thus the term Impact Fracture.
The most common type of impact fracture starts at the tip of a point and runs down one blade edge possibly reaching the shoulder of a point. Some points were reworked into a useable point after having been damaged by an impact fracture.
The side pictures are of a
Hardin and a Paleo lance. Both have impact fractures on them.
The below pictures are of impact fractures that ran down the front or "face" of the point rather than down the edge.
