Timing the Introduction of Arrow Technologies in the Salish Sea

Summary

A substantial amount of recent literature has re-examined the applicability of dart-arrow indices for hafted chipped stone tools from archaeological assemblages ranging from the Columbia Plateau to Californian Coast. As yet, these approaches have not been employed to examine variation in Coast Salish lithic traditions. We critically apply Hildebrandt and King's (2012) recent-dart arrow index and also employ a discriminant function analysis (DFA) to a data set of chipped and ground stone points from 49 archaeological sites spanning the past 5,000 years in the Salish Sea. These indices yield different timing for the introduction of arrow technologies in the region, ranging from 3500-2000 cal BP. However, all suggest that darts and arrows were complementary technologies. Following Erlandson et al. (2014), we argue that applying metric indices for functional interpretations overlooks the complexities of coastal lithic assemblages and the wide range of potential functions for hafted chipped stone technologies.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage