The origins and early elaboration of projectile technology

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey A. O'Driscoll ◽  
Jessica C. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Projectile Technology

scholarly journals A Leaf Point Documents Hunting with Spears in the Middle Paleolithic at Hohle Fels, Germany

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (30) ◽  
Author(s):  
Veerle Rots ◽  
Justin Coppe ◽  
Nicholas Conard
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Evolutionary Development ◽  
Functional Study ◽  
Middle Paleolithic ◽  
Projectile Technology ◽  
Excellent Preservation ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Pointed End ◽  
The University

During the 2020 season at Hohle Fels Cave in the Ach Valley of southwestern Germany the excavation team from the University of Tübingen recovered a bifacial leaf point in archaeological horizon (AH) X. This horizon is the fifth deepest of the Middle Paleolithic horizons at the site and is located roughly 120 cm beneath the base of the rich Aurignacian layers of the cave. The new leaf point, or Blattspitze in German, is the first artifact of its kind found in situ in the Swabian caves since Gustav Riek’s excavation at Haldenstein Cave near the source of the Lone River recovered two leaf points in excellent preservation in 1936. The new find allowed our team to conduct the first techno-functional study of a freshly recovered leaf point from the European Middle Paleolithic. This study demonstrates that the leaf point was hafted at the less pointy end of the artifact. The leaf point bears clear damage to the pointed end of the artifact that occurred during a hunting episode. A Neanderthal knapper further damaged the tool during an attempt to resharpen and rejuvenate the tool. This damage was likely the reason the knapper discarded the leaf point at Hohle Fels. This result and a re-examination of the two leaf points from Haldenstein Cave indicate that late Neanderthals used Blattspitzen for hunting large game. The current results do not explicitly prove that spears with hafted leaf points were always thrown or used as thrusting spears, and one can easily imagine scenarios in which a weapon of this kind could be used in both ways. Ideally, the ongoing excavation at Hohle Fels will recover more leaf points, which will give us the opportunity to document the technological variability of this kind of tool with regard to their manufacture, function and life history. We also view the current research at Hohle Fels as an excellent opportunity to gain a better and more strongly contextualized understanding of the technological system linking lithic, botanical and osseous technologies during this phase of the Middle Paleolithic. This paper also considers the place that hafted leaf points have within the broader evolutionary development of hunting and projectile technology.

scholarly journals The African Origin of Complex Projectile Technology: An Analysis Using Tip Cross-Sectional Area and Perimeter

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew L. Sisk ◽  
John J. Shea
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Cross Sectional Area ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Sectional Area ◽  
African Origin ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Projectile Technology ◽  
Area And Perimeter ◽  
Point Types

Despite a body of literature focusing on the functionality of modern and stylistically distinct projectile points, comparatively little attention has been paid to quantifying the functionality of the early stages of projectile use. Previous work identified a simple ballistics measure, the Tip Cross-Sectional Area, as a way of determining if a given class of stone points could have served as effective projectile armatures. Here we use this in combination with an alternate measure, the Tip Cross-Sectional Perimeter, a more accurate proxy of the force needed to penetrate a target to a lethal depth. The current study discusses this measure and uses it to analyze a collection of measurements from African Middle Stone Age pointed stone artifacts. Several point types that were rejected in previous studies are statistically indistinguishable from ethnographic projectile points using this new measure. The ramifications of this finding for a Middle Stone Age origin of complex projectile technology is discussed.

Projectile technology

1998 ◽  
Vol 35 (09) ◽  
pp. 35-5161-35-5161
Keyword(s):  
Projectile Technology

Hypervelocity projectile technology (D2)

1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
GREG BISCHER ◽  
MARK CASTLE
Keyword(s):  
Projectile Technology
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