The Decline of Darts in Late Formative Taraco (Southern Lake Titicaca) and Its Implications for the Rise of Tiwanaku Hegemony

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Global “Impact” of Projectile Technologies: Updating Methods and Regional Overviews of the Invention and Transmission of the Spear-Thrower and the Bow and Arrow" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this paper, we argue that both arrows and darts were used in the Taraco Peninsula (south Lake Titicaca) until the end of the Middle Formative period (around 250 BC), after which arrow technology began to predominate. A statistical, morphological, and chronological analysis of 187 projectile points recovered by the Taraco Archaeological Project (TAP) shows that large projectile points associated with dart technology (5C) seemed to have disappeared before the end of the Middle Formative (250 BC), while smaller points with concave bases (5D) continued into the Late Formative through Middle Horizon periods (250 BC-AD1050). Furthermore, we show that narrow-stemmed triangular points (4E) first appeared in the Late Formative I period (250 BC–AD 300), rather than during the Middle Horizon period as previously thought. We propose that the small concave-base projectile point (5D) was primarily used as an arrow beginning in the Late Formative period, and that the narrow-stemmed triangular projectile point (4E) was exclusively used as an arrow. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that the appearance of morphological innovations in projectile points during the Middle and Late Formative periods may signal identity formation activities related to the rise of Tiwanaku hegemony rather than hunting activities.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• The Global “Impact” of Projectile Technologies: Updating Methods and Regional Overviews of the Invention and Transmission of the Spear-Thrower and the Bow and Arrow

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39349.0