Exploring Archaic Technological Innovations: Comparative Functional Efficacy of Copper and Stone Projectile Points

Summary

This is an abstract from the "From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Archaic period in North America was a time of technological innovation and experimentation with new tool materials. Conical copper projectile points appeared in North America during this time and recent radiocarbon evidence shows that they were in use by 7,500 years ago. These points are thought to be the earliest form of copper projectiles used in North America, and archaeological evidence has shown that they are one of the most common copper projectile point forms found in Archaic assemblages. This experimental study was designed to evaluate the comparative functional efficacy of early conical point forms. Morphometric data was collected from Archaic period copper conical points and stone points from Wisconsin. These data were used to design and produce copper and stone point replicas, which were used to assess comparative functional efficiency in terms of three performance attributes related to projectile efficiency: (1) Penetration: how deeply projectile points enter a target, (2) Accuracy: how consistently the projectile points hit a target, and (3) Durability: how well each point type resists breakage upon impact with hard objects. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of hunter gatherer innovation when presented with novel tool materials.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36632.0