Reverse Engineering Dart Point Design Requirements Using Whole Points from a Middle Woodland Site in Mississippi

Summary

Reverse engineering involves using products of a technology, in the absence of documentation, to determine design parameters. A set of 46 whole hafted bifaces from 22OK746 in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, which contained a Middle Woodland occupation, were studied. They were determined to be projectile points based on shared size, shape, and hafting traits with bifaces from the site that displayed impact fractures. The whole points were analyzed using parameters derived theoretically, experimentally, and empirically by other researchers to characterize dart points: shoulder width, dart/arrow index, weight, tip angle, length-thickness ratio, raw material, and cross-sectional area. The dart/arrow index showed all 46 points to be dart tips; that only half of them were identified as dart points using shoulder width was attributed to blade reworking that affected the entire blade length. Tip angle and cross-sectional area did not explain discard of these whole points, as they were within design parameters for all points. Four points were low weight. Forty-five of the 46 points were thick relative to their length, indicating that reworking had made them unusable as dart points. There is likely to be variability over time and space as to which of these parameters are most operable.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16076