A Study of the Function of Korean Late Paleolithic Stemmed Points Using Tip Cross-Sectional Area (TCSA)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The introduction of blade technology, stemmed points, end scrapers, burins, denticulates, and finer grained materials led to the transition from the Early to Late Paleolithic in Korea. Stemmed points have been considered a representative tool that led this whole set of changes. We examine the role that the stemmed points played during the Late Paleolithic. Our main questions are: What were stemmed points used for? How diverse were their functions? What are the temporal patterns in stemmed point functions? We calculated tip cross-sectional areas (TCSA) to discriminate hypothetically between different weapon-delivery systems, for example, poisoned arrowheads or thrusting spear. Our results show that the stemmed points most probably functioned as javelins and thrusting spear tips, with smaller numbers as dart tips and arrowheads. TCSA values depend on size and raw material types. We found different usage of stemmed points in different sites. However, some sites show a wide range of TCSA values that may represent multipurpose usage of stemmed points. The temporal pattern of TCSA values is one of little change throughout the Late Paleolithic period. We conclude that stemmed points were mainly used as Javelin tips, but they were multifunctional tools.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36385.0