If the weapon used would have had more density and been thinner as in an iron or steel weapon, it would have carried the wound into the bone further, as I have pointed out before. A lighter weapon, being used at higher speed, can cause damage similar to steel. Speed of impact makes a huge difference as to the spalling effects on bone and the amount of damage that was done points to a wooden weapon of light weight that was Expertly Used.
The setup that you use is important too, where was the target placed with regard to the attacker. Did you have the test piece at head height and on a semi-flexible mount? Did you then run the same test multiple times trying it from different angles and different types of speed? Do you have any experience at all in the martial arts, actual training wise? And yes, this is very important because Most of us have no clue about the damage that can be done by various weapons types. Without the training it skews your results.
I have gone out and done the field work, and tested each and every new blade design that I built, and there were several. One of my most favored was the Celt-Iberian Falcatta, which looks very similar to the Kukri of the Ghurkas, and yet it was used by the earliest horsemen on the Spanish Steppes, the earliest examples made of bronze. It cut with more devastating effects than a straight blade of similar weight and size, and it had to do with the Exact Shape, not a generalized shape, but a specific one that has a particular mathematic curve behind it: the Bernouli spiral, where it gives the same angle to the cut all the way along the swing, as well as the mass distribution.
The wooden tools were built specific to that piece of wood, and if you cannot see and feel the 'soul' of the wood, if you are not enough of a woodworker to be able to pick out a superior piece of the material, with Just the right shape to it's growth for the tool you need. They did not just go out and grab any old piece of a certain material and expect top results, they were very picky and precise about what got made into what, and for weapons, which were THE TOP of the Tech and status symbol classes, they chose the very best with the exact right features for their weapons.
As a swordmaker, I had a lot of Knifemakers wanting to know the differences between a knife and a sword, because each of them usually try to build a sword, but try to make it a big knife, like how machete's are made. The problem with that is that swords are very different than a knife. Knives are made to cut, in a controlled fashion, they are hardened steel and very hard, tempered back just enough to keep them from being Too brittle, but as you know, steel knives can be snapped off, and that will not work for a sword, let alone the balance and harmonic tuning of the item.
(Talking swords of medieval and rennassance eras, later saber and the Japanese Katana and the Samshir are all slicing weapons and differently built, but have much in common with their European and earlier counterparts) Generally speaking a sword is more of an impact weapon, as most targets are armored to some degree, and so they are not hardened and are thicker than a knife would be. The edge on most swords was actually closer to that of a cold chisel for metal rather than a wood chisel as under impact the thinner edge would chip or break, imperiling the weapon.
The balance and tuning is different, in a knife they are one and the same, and the balance point should be right at the guard of the blade or right under the first finger, the tuning points will be ahead and behind that only a little bit, so it is not as important, but the motion and feel of the blade in hand and how the edge presents itself are of utmost importance behind the hardness and edge keeping ability, in a sword the balance needs to be about 3 inches forward of the guard and there will then be two tuning points, the percussion and repercussion points. The percussion point is the 'sweet spot' in a sword (or baseball/cricket bat) and the placement of the repercussion point is of vital importance, in a single hand weapon it needs to lay directly under the center finger in the middle of the hand, the strongest part of your hand, and line up with the wrist, so that any vibration of the blade is allowed for as it will vibrate to either side of that point and Not be jarred or jangled out of the hand. If you have ever hit something holding onto the end of the bat and gotten a nasty surprise of impact then you will know how important it is to have that impact redirected so as to not shatter your own hand every time you hit something with your sword.
Most knifemakers do not know of this difference in physics behind swords, but know that of knives well. I had been a high end Navy Welder, so I knew my metallurgy and construction techniques. And it is EASY to make something that Looks LIKE a Sword, but does not at all Act like a sword, if it does not have all of the metallurgy and costruction technique along with the exact proper mass distribution in the whole weapon. Do you see what I mean here? It is easy for you to make something that may LOOK like an Aussie Aboriginal Fighting 'rang, a Warrior's Wonna, and yet have it completely fail and may as well be balsa wood because you do not know the specific techniques in making that item.
Knapping Flint should be easy, right? Give it a whirl, first you have to be able to identify the right materials and places to get it, then find the right nodule, then prepare it correctly knocking off the chalk parts and revealing the harder metamorphised core, being able to heat treat the stone so that it is more workable under the hammerstone, and then learning percussive and pressure flaking techniques both...is not the sort of thing that most modern people are going to take the time to sit down and really Learn the full craft to Master Level, and that is what it is going to take for you to have a reasonable representation weapon for your testing, unless you go in with the understanding that you have neither the skill at weaponsmaking of that specific sort, nor do you have the specific martial arts training for that weapon, and ANY sort of weapons training is, by definition, martial arts.
Again, you give the indigines too little credit. You should see some of the industrial accidents that happen with wood, soft wood makes excellent spears, fire-harden the point makes it that much better, and Soft woods are what Europeans and most in Asia were able to use, Australia has some of the very hardest woods in the world, and the damage that can come from even softer wooden weapons can equal or exceed what is seen in that skull. A 1/16 inch radius edge of properly, Expertly Hardened Aussie hardwood wonna, with it's curved edge, is going to do more damage than a straight edge, and the angle of attack and the speed of the attack are going to make all the difference.
You appear to be trying to FORCE an interpretation, over the top of expert advice and testimony, my question now is:
WHY? Why are you pushing this view? Why are you so sure that properly built and wielded wooden implement could not do this when you have been told by an expert on the subject of weapons and swords that your interpretation does Not Fit, that there were no other choices of material except possibly fire hardened bone? The Verbal Historical Record of The People in the area show No Visitors until somewhat later, so you need to come up with something that they would have had, and a steel weapon is obviously not going to be a fit since they did not HAVE that technology, and there was no other source for it there.
