I’ve been coming across videos of people breaking obsidian chunks to make arrowheads but could never find the answer why it could be broken with light hits with a rock, and then not break when in use with said weapon.
In: 564
1st it wasn’t. It was used mainly for arrows. Occasionally spears. in some places a bladed club. There were lots of obsidian knives, but mostly for utility purposes.
Yes it’s fragile, but it’s really really sharp. Sharper than any steel blade you can buy today. It’s also easy to chip into a point or edge if you know what you are doing.
Generally though it’s simply that it was the best material they had. Steel is extremely hard to make. Iron is hard to make and doesn’t keep an edge well. Bronze, and cooper don’t make very sharp or durable edged weapons. Also it’s a lot of work to make a bronze weapon from scratch. For primitive societies their options were obsidian, flint, bone, and wood. None of which are as easy to work as obsidian or as sharp.
If you have ready access to obsidian it’s easier to make a bunch of obsidian arrows heads than other options. A flint arrow that misses a game animal is likely to be lost, and an arrow you put into a foe you are unlikely to get back. If you do recover the arrow there is a good chance the head is damaged any way no matter what it’s made of.
Although the reality is most primitive societies used what they had access to. If they had obsidian or flint they used that if not they made do with wood or bone.
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