Some people just have the best job. Anthropologists at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire got to play around with awesome daggers as part of a new study they've just published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
The team was researching which weapons were more valued by the tribes of New Guinea a hundred years ago and found out that, as far as close-combat goes, there was nothing more desirable than a bone dagger, LiveScience reports.
The daggers that New Guinean warriors used in battle were typically made from the thigh bones of cassowaries — very large flightless birds native to the area, notes Newsweek. But what all warriors treasured the most was a blade carved from a human femur.
These imposing weapons were "formidable, fierce-looking and beautiful," states lead study author Nathaniel Dominy, who was fascinated by the collection of 10 human bone daggers he discovered at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College.
These daggers, now considered a work of art, had an equally high aesthetic value for the warriors who used to wear them. Dominy's investigation uncovered that the New Guinean warriors would strap these stunning blades to their biceps and wear them for a double reason: to inspire terror on the battleground and to show their social status in the community.
And nothing was as prized as daggers fashioned from the bones of highly respected tribesmen. These distinguished weapons "carried greater social prestige," the anthropologists explained and were imbued with a special symbolism.
