As gory as it sounds, it was common to test samurai swords on condemned criminals and corpses, to test their cutting ability, in feudal Japan.. Some were documented as being
frightfully sharp...... cutting completely through 3 bodies or more. Bone, muscle, through it all. I used to collect the original ones, and read tons of history on them, kind of goes with the territory of collecting them.
My first reaction was perhaps someone testing bolt designs, or crossbow designs, etc, on a dead person, perhaps? Sounds gory, and it is, but they didn't quite have computer simulators back then. I can't imagine the recipient of the bolts to remain upright after just one bolt to the head.
Pretty impressive grouping, though!
Japanese swordsmiths were known to wander battlefields after the battle was over, to study the way the corpses were cut, and design the swords to be more effective for the way they were currently being used. Lighter, heavier, longer, shorter, more curved, straighter...... and so on. I imagine warfare evolved (sad to use that word and warfare together) similarly throughout the world as far as testing and design.