A dagger made with human bones is discovered

In the past, people on New Guinea Island possessed a dagger made from bone. In general, it was a thigh (big) bone of Hikidori, but some using human femurs was found inside.

Why New Guinea Warriors Prized Human Bone Daggers
https://www.livescience.com/62399-human-cassowary-bone-daggers.html

The research team of Nathaniel Dominy and his colleagues is an anthropologist of Dartmouth University, they discovered a large amount of dagger that there is a length of about 30cm at the Hood Museum of Art in the University, gave a survey. The dagger was the one used by the tribal warriors living in New Guinea Island, and the surface was decorated finely.

In the historical book from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, "the warriors of New Guinea fought with spears and bow and arrows, stabbed the injured opponent with a dagger", "Used when neutralizing prisoners to eat" A description is found. However, since all these books are made by human hands outside the island, there is a possibility that expressions exaggerated expressively are used or misunderstanding culture, so we declare that the contents are true It is difficult, "Professor Domini said.

It seems that bones of an important person such as a person respected by a father and a community were used because a dagger was thought to possess the power, power, and mental power of a person who became a material, Professor Domini Said that it was no doubt that bone daggers were "treasure" for the people of New Guinea, whether or not they were used for "cannibalism".


The research team investigated which one is stronger, which is the strength of the dagger made of human bone and the bone of Hikidori by bending test. It was revealed that the bones of Hikidori broke when applying about 20 kg of force, and the human bone had doubled its durability.


Because of this, Professor Domini says, "Because the dagger made from the bones of Hikidori was more likely to break than the dagger of the human bone, the value of the dagger's dagger is further increased, long as a symbol of the power and fame of the owning person I guess. " Detailed research results were published on April 25, 2018 on the academic site "Royal Society Open ScienceIt is supposed to be published in.