Pointing to the past: Arrowheads, experimental archaeology, and the CA Awards

Whether following signs to a destination or moving the cursor on a computer, we encounter arrowheads throughout our daily life. The symbol is so familiar that it is surprising to learn that it has only been used to indicate direction for the last few hundred years. Its unmistakable outline – a design that we know in the UK as ‘barbed and tanged’ – has much earlier origins, however. The central stem directly below the projectile’s point, where the arrow shaft is attached, is known as the tang, while the two projections either side are the barbs. Such arrowheads appeared in Britain and continental Europe c.4,500 years ago, as one of the last types to be made in stone while the earlie