The texture of halberds is slate and they are flat and long in shape. The body of these artifacts is ground and they can be clearly divided into handle and blade sections, with the handle thicker and wider. In most cases the base area is ground ping and straight with the two sides generally arching slightly inwards. The two sides of the blade are non symmetrical and the edge side is center forward, often slightly arching inwards. The ends are grounded round and smooth but most are lost or damaged. Often the cutting edge is severely worn with soft expenditure but they are also often missing. Because the shape of these artifacts resembles that of ancient Chinese bronze or jade halberds so they are normally referred to as halberds.

As to its usethere have been three distinct interpretations through the years:

1. Kano Tadao defined such “stone spears” according to the characteristics of their handle as “indented stone spears” (Sung Wen-hsun 1955: 24-25).
2. Shih Chang-ju and Liu Yi-chang determining that this sort of artifact approximated to the ancient Chinese halberd called it a “Stone Halberd.” They believed that the way in which handles were attached to “Stone halberds” were the same as bronze halberds.(Shih Chang-ju 1987: 111).
3. In 1996 after Liu Yi-chang excavated the Puli senior high school dormitory site he seems to have developed a different opinion of halberds: “although it is generally believed that halberds were used by soldiers, they may well have had an agricultural use, as a tool for harvesting crops” (Liu Yi-chang 1998: 51, 2000: 44).
   

The author believes that the halberds unearthed at the Tamalin site have the following characteristics:

1. The handle is wide and thick easy to hold in the hand but not for hafting;
2. The left and right sides of the cutting edge are non symmetrical, the ends are grounded round and smooth, making it less useful as a weapon;
3. Ancient Chinese halberds were weapons generally used in chariot combat. Both of these functions do not accord with the cultural customs and habits of prehistoric Taiwanese aboriginal people;
4. The wear and tear on the halberd’s cutting edge is mainly soft expenditure, an indication that they were not used as a weapon;
5. the halberd is similar in shape to the “stone sickle unearthed in the Peinan culture of Taitung in roughly the same era as Tamalin culture.