# Clovis Technology



## BirdNut (Jun 8, 2009)

OK, so maybe a stupid question, and something I could probably look up on the web, but what is the big deal about "Clovis Technology"?

Lately on the NatGeo channel or maybe Discovery channels a show called "Journey to 10,000 BC" was on.  I watched enough of it on different occassions to have taken in the whole show, however, out of sequence etc.

The narrator and the other folks kept referring to "Clovis Technology" and its extinction around the time of 10,000 BC or so, and talked about comet impacts, global climate change etc. being the cause.

I am about as ignorant as you can get regarding arrowheads and such, I even walked around with a triangular piece of quartz in my bird vest for years thinking I had found something but it turned out to be just a rock.

I am aware that a clovis was a type of point, long and used primarily as a spear (I think).  But what's the big deal about it versus the other points I know nothing about?  Was Clovis Technology like a Ferrari and we're all driving mini coopers or what?


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## jayroe (Jun 8, 2009)

The oldest, the hardest to find and the one with the most value. a G-8 Clovis is A find of a lifetime.I am sorry "the" find  of a lifetime.


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## NCHillbilly (Jun 8, 2009)

Clovis points were made with a level of skill and control not seen on many other points. As a flintknapper, I find Clovis points to be really hard to replicate. The percussion thinning was done with highly controlled side-to-side/overshot flakes, and the cross-section has to be shaped just right in order to take off the flutes. The flutes are the main stand-out feature of Clovis points, and require a specialized platform set-up in order to remove them. It's quite an accomplishment to get a Clovis point fluted on both sides without breaking it.


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## Nicodemus (Jun 8, 2009)

Here is a tutorial-pictorial I made a few years ago.


http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=53822&highlight=from+rock+spear+point


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## NCHillbilly (Jun 8, 2009)

That's a great tutorial, Nick. Mighty good looking points.


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## BirdNut (Jun 8, 2009)

NCHillbilly said:


> Clovis points were made with a level of skill and control not seen on many other points. As a flintknapper, I find Clovis points to be really hard to replicate. The percussion thinning was done with highly controlled side-to-side/overshot flakes, and the cross-section has to be shaped just right in order to take off the flutes. The flutes are the main stand-out feature of Clovis points, and require a specialized platform set-up in order to remove them. It's quite an accomplishment to get a Clovis point fluted on both sides without breaking it.



So is this why the Clovis point as Nic shows an example of how to make died out...because they were so hard to make?


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## NCHillbilly (Jun 8, 2009)

Probably more like they were designed to kill big critters like mammoths, which died out. Clovis points have been found in association with mammoth, mastadon, camel, and other extinct big critter kills. The Folsom point, which came later, was a smaller, more refined fluted point, and probably originated from the Clovis. It has mainly been found associated with extinct bison kills. No point type has been used continuously through history, they all change with time. Some types were in use for a couple thousand years or more, some had a short time of use. Cultures change, lifestyles change, the land and wildlife in an area changes, so point types have always changed.


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## Katera73 (Jun 8, 2009)

I learn something everyday I log on to this forum. NCHillbilly thats as good of a explanation as could be said . I think you are excately right. Thanks Nic for the pictoral I now know why I break some when I'm thining the base.


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## Indian Arrowhead Man (Sep 6, 2009)

I saw the same show the OP referred and I don't agree with a lot of their conclusions.  For starters, there's no evidence that the Clovis people "died out" just because they stopped making Clovis points.  That only means they stopped making Clovis points and started making other types.  And then later, those types ended and others began...and so forth and so on.  

I also dispute the long held belief that the manufacture of Clovis points was somehow 'tethered' to the hunting of megafauna (wooly mammoths and so forth) or that the paleoindians needed Clovis points to hunt wooly mammoths.  Bison were pretty big and the Indians eventually developed the bow and arrow and used very small arrowheads to kill bison.  So the claim that the Clovis points were needed to kill big mammoths doesn't really make any sense.  If that were the case, then all projectile points would be 'relative' to the size of the animal being hunted.


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## NCHillbilly (Sep 6, 2009)

The Indians killing bison with small arrow points were doing it from horseback at extremely close range. There's a heck of a difference between a bison and a mammoth, too. And the Clovis people weren't on horseback and didn't have bows. If I was going after a several-ton animal with a spear, I wouldn't have a inch-long triangular point on it, that's for sure. If the points were hafted on insertable foreshafts for atlatl darts as a lot of evidence seems to suggest, they probably doubled as knives after the kill, too.


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## Bow Only (Sep 6, 2009)

With more information, we could trace the transition of projectile points from Solutreans to Clovis, Clovis to Dalton, Greenbriar to Bolen, etc.  Unfortunately, we don't have all the pieces to that puzzle.  What we do know is that a vast majority of the Clovis peoples died and the evidence points to a comet impact.  It took approximately one to two thousand years for them to repopulate enough to leave a cultural footprint.  With the megafauna depleted, they had to change their culture to survive and their projectile points changed to reflect that.

As for horses, they are historic remnants of the Spanish and haven't been around very long comparitively.  Neither has the bow and arrow.


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## Indian Arrowhead Man (Sep 6, 2009)

NCHillbilly said:


> The Indians killing bison with small arrow points were doing it from horseback at extremely close range. There's a heck of a difference between a bison and a mammoth, too. And the Clovis people weren't on horseback and didn't have bows. If I was going after a several-ton animal with a spear, I wouldn't have a inch-long triangular point on it, that's for sure. If the points were hafted on insertable foreshafts for atlatl darts as a lot of evidence seems to suggest, they probably doubled as knives after the kill, too.



NCH, I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be so excuse me if I seem to be off target a little bit.

The benefit of a large Clovis point as a spearhead was probably offset by its inherent fragility.  That is, the longer a stone point, the more fragile it was.  In fact, the evidence is that most of the large Clovis points were used as hafted Knives vs. projectile points.  There is also a lot of evidence that the paleoindians used bone/antler double-pointed "pins" as projectile tips rather than stone points.  There's never actually been a Clovis point found in situ that proved it was used as a projectile.  

For that matter, it may very well be that the Clovis people used atlatls.  If so, an atlatl dart -tipped with a bone/antler projectile or a 'small' Clovis- would have struck with a lot more force than a simple spear thrown (without an atlatl) or thrust.  

Since we're talking about a wooden lance (or even an ivory/bone foreshaft), the purpose of the projectile tip would have only been to facilitate the penetration of the hide and flesh.  A shorter projectile would have done that just as well as a longer projectile since the penetration would have been caused by the sharp tip of the point being driven by the weight of the shaft/foreshaft and the energy of the cast (or thrust).  An analogy is bullets:  the length of a bullet really doesn't enhance its penetration; the weight of the bullet as well as the force driving it are the primary factors.  

Anyway, I reckon this is all conjecture to some degree, anyway.


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## Indian Arrowhead Man (Sep 7, 2009)

Bow Only said:


> What we do know is that a vast majority of the Clovis peoples died and the evidence points to a comet impact.  It took approximately one to two thousand years for them to repopulate enough to leave a cultural footprint.  With the megafauna depleted, they had to change their culture to survive and their projectile points changed to reflect that.



Bow, I just don't agree with that.  I don't think there's any evidence of a decrease in population.  I also don't think there's any significance that should be inferred from the transition to post-Clovis points.  I mean, you say that the megafauna were depleted...what about Bison?  They're pretty "mega" if you ask me.  And the point types that followed Clovis really show no adaptation to hunting smaller game.  In most cases, the non-fluted points that followed Clovis are just about as large if not not larger.  Quad, Beaver Lake, Suwannee, Simpson, even Daltons were often as large as any Clovis points.  

I think a lot of the idea that "the Clovis people were wiped out by a comet" is due to claims made by Goodyear and others but their reasoning is faulty, in my opinion.  Goodyear claims that because Redstones are more scarce than Clovis, that "proves" that Redstone people were much less populous.  No, it could be that Redstone people only made Redstones for a fairly short period of time.  Thus, Redstone points will be less numerous.  

There's plenty of reasons for an apparent reduction in the number of this or that point type and we don't have to see population reductions as the (sole) reason.


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## NCHillbilly (Sep 7, 2009)

IAM, we'll just have to agree to disagree about using lil' tiny points for hunting megafauna. I make and hunt with stone points, and the "bigger is weaker" theory don't hold up under actual use, either. Clovis points weren't usually made out of heat-treated or  brittle materials, and the shape, cross-section, and hafting techniques of a Clovis makes it one of the stronger types out there-I've thrown spears with replica Clovis points on them and haven't had nearly as much problems with breakage as I do with small arrow points. I don't buy the angled bone rods being big-game projectile points, either, I think they were used as foreshafts with stone points hafted to them. And yes, there have been Clovis points found imbedded in the bodies of animals in situ, strongly suggesting that they were thrown into them-sometimes up to a dozen points inside the remains of a critter. How many times have you jabbed a dozen knives into an animal you are skinning and left them there? Makes even less sense if you consider that they often traveled hundreds of miles to procure stone. I know that I don't deer hunt with round bone points-I use sharp stone ones. Arrows and spears kill by hemmorhage-poking a small hole doesn't kill effectively, cutting a large hole does. Everybody thought that Calf Creek/Andice points were knives too, until one was found deeply imbedded in the skull of an extinct bison-it didn't get through a bison skull by somebody stabbing it in. 
As for the comet theory, I don't much buy that, either. I think it's pretty easy to trace the evolution of Clovis points down through Cumberland, Folsom, and into Dalton. A good percentage of the early Dalton and Hardaway points were fluted. I think that styles just changed, the same as stemmed points replacing corner-notched ones, or bifurcated points giving way to leaf-shapes over time. I'm not convinced one way or the other on the Solutrean theory yet, but there is some pretty good evidence for it-the majority of Clovis points are found in the east, and are more similar to Solutrean technique than anything on the other side of Beringia. Scott Silsby showed me some photos last year of an artifact he's been studying that looks exactly like a Solutrean laurel-leaf point. It was dredged up about twenty miles off the Virginia coast (an area that would have been dry land during the Pleistocene) and it was made from Pennsylvania rhyolite.


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## Sixes (Sep 7, 2009)

I've always thought that the vast majority of points out there (including Clovis) were designed to function primarily as knives. I know that some were used in "hunting" but I also know that the natives were smart enough to kill in volume such as buffalo jump sites.

What would be easier, trying to kill one animal with a spear or drive multiple animals over some type of trap (hole, cliff, river, etc)? 

I think that the lack of Clovis points is more of it being a lack of Clovis people and being more scattered across the land. As time progressed, so did population, technology and the number of points.

What amazes me the most is how the technology seemed to change everywhere over the different eras to very similar types and sizes.


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## Indian Arrowhead Man (Sep 7, 2009)

NCHillbilly said:


> IAM, we'll just have to agree to disagree about using lil' tiny points for hunting megafauna.



Arrowheads found in bison show that "lil tiny points" can and did kill megafauna.




NCHillbilly said:


> Clovis points weren't usually made out of heat-treated or brittle materials



I have never heard anyone claim that heat-treating makes points brittle.  In fact, heat treating actually lowers the hardness (measured on the Mohs scale) and as such, would probably make heat treated points more resilient and flexible, if anything.




NCHillbilly said:


> I don't buy the angled bone rods being big-game projectile points, either, I think they were used as foreshafts with stone points hafted to them.



I agree that the "angled bone rods" were foreshafts.  I did not claim otherwise.  I referred to *bone/antler double pointed "pins"* being used as projectile points.  That usage is well documented throughout several time periods in different regions of the country including during paleo times in Florida.




NCHillbilly said:


> And yes, there have been Clovis points found imbedded in the bodies of animals in situ, strongly suggesting that they were thrown into them-sometimes up to a dozen points inside the remains of a critter.



Please provide a reference for a paleoindian kill site where a dozen Clovis points were found inside the remains-?  That is news to me.  




NCHillbilly said:


> poking a small hole doesn't kill effectively, cutting a large hole does



Hmm...it's tempting to refute that by pointing out that the diameter of a .30-.06 round is about the size of many arrow shafts and a lot more narrow than the broadheads but a .30-.06 round still kills pretty effectively...but to be fair, a rifle round causes a lot of tissue damage in the surrounding tissue area much larger than the primary wound channel created by the bullet.  

But I will say that penetration must be sufficient to makes it to a vital organ and puncture it.  So deep penetration is more likely to kill than a wider but more shallow wound.  Keep in mind that in the case of a large animal covered with animal hide and hair, there was a lot of 'non lethal' flesh area to get through before you could even think about attacking a vital organ.  




NCHillbilly said:


> Everybody thought that Calf Creek/Andice points were knives too, until one was found deeply imbedded in the skull of an extinct bison-it didn't get through a bison skull by somebody stabbing it in.



It's unknown if that point was the weapon of choice used to kill the bison.  I have stuck my knife into the skull of a deer more than once (for whatever reason) during field dressing.  That doesn't mean I killed it with my knife.  

Besides, one robin doesn't mean it's spring time and one Calf Creek point doesn't mean that ALL or even most Calf Creek points were used as projectile points.  Usage wear/resharpening strongly indicate they were hafted knives.  

I suspect that many points saw double duty, starting off as hafted knives and then when resharpened down, could have been used as spear points to finish out their life.  

When it comes to killing animals with spears or whatever...a comparison to the elephant hunting techniques of Africans in historical times might be relevant.  The African Bushmen (close to being pygmy sized) frequently killed large, dangerous African elephants by making a judicious stab into the animals' bladders.  This resulted in a rather slow and painful death of the elephants over a matter of days during which time the bushmen simply followed and waited.  Similarly, I don't know that paleoindians necessarily hunted megafauna as often as they did smaller, safer game.  I think that might have been a rare event..and when they did hunt mammoths, perhaps they also used a similar tactic and strategy as the Bushmen to inflict a fatal wound and then trailed the animal vs. trying to drop them on the spot.  If so, it seems to me there would have been more emphasis on a long shaft to penetrate as deeply as possible rather than a large, wide blade.  I believe that the Bushmen also inflict the wounds by a direct stab more or less up into the bladder area vs. throwing spears.

Also, most western Clovis points were/are more or less straight sided from the blade edge down into the hafting area.  The significance of that is that the hafting area was more or less the width of the shaft.  So if the blade was same width as the hafting area, then the blade was (also) the same width as the shaft.  That means that whether the stone point was long or short, the shaft itself was also acting to enlarge the wound channel begun by the stone tip.  In that case, a longer Clovis point would have offered no benefit over a shorter Clovis point.  In fact, a longer stone tip would have been more likely to fracture or snap off inside the animal if it hit a bone.  Once the stone tip snapped off, most of the penetrating power of the spear/dart would have been lost.  



NCHillbilly said:


> How many times have you jabbed a dozen knives into an animal you are skinning and left them there? Makes even less sense if you consider that they often traveled hundreds of miles to procure stone.



Okay, how about this:  How many times have you thrown/cast a dozen Clovis tipped spears or darts into an animal you are killing and left them there?  Makes even less sense if you consider that they often traveled hundreds of miles to procure stone to make those Clovis spearheads.


LOL  I guess I'm saying I don't understand what your point was supposed to be -?  I mean, are you saying the paleoindians would not have left a dozen knives in a carcass but they would have knowingly left a dozen spearheads in a carcass?  Why would they do that?  

I think that the Clovis points were left behind in animal remains for the same reason that I've lost a few knives out in the field...I lost them in all the blood and guts because I got careless and it was dark and the sweat from dragging that sucker out of the swamp washed the bug juice off my face and the mosquitoes were tearing me up and so forth and so on.  Maybe somebody was working on a piece of meat, laid his knife down to go answer nature's call and while he was gone two other guys rolled a big old mammoth leg over and covered up the first guy's knife.  When he got back he demanded to know where his *#%*! knife was and they just looked at him and went  

I dunno, you tell me:  if you don't think Clovis points were knives then why do you think they would have left a dozen Clovis spearheads stuck in a carcass?  

Thanks for the discussion, BTW!

UPDATE:  I asked NCHillbilly why the paleodindians would have left behind Clovis points as spearheads in an animal carcass...to be fair, as was pointed out about one of the mammoth skeletons found at Naco (AZ), it appears the animal was never butchered so it likely was wounded and ran off to die and the paleoindians never butchered it and so never had the chance to recover their spearheads.  THAT is one reason they would have left behind their spearheads, albeit unintentionally.


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## Bow Only (Sep 7, 2009)

Indian Arrowhead Man said:


> Bow, I just don't agree with that.  I don't think there's any evidence of a decrease in population.  I also don't think there's any significance that should be inferred from the transition to post-Clovis points.  I mean, you say that the megafauna were depleted...what about Bison?  They're pretty "mega" if you ask me.  And the point types that followed Clovis really show no adaptation to hunting smaller game.  In most cases, the non-fluted points that followed Clovis are just about as large if not not larger.  Quad, Beaver Lake, Suwannee, Simpson, even Daltons were often as large as any Clovis points.
> 
> I think a lot of the idea that "the Clovis people were wiped out by a comet" is due to claims made by Goodyear and others but their reasoning is faulty, in my opinion.  Goodyear claims that because Redstones are more scarce than Clovis, that "proves" that Redstone people were much less populous.  No, it could be that Redstone people only made Redstones for a fairly short period of time.  Thus, Redstone points will be less numerous.
> 
> There's plenty of reasons for an apparent reduction in the number of this or that point type and we don't have to see population reductions as the (sole) reason.



I enjoy reading your posts.  I made my comments based on the nanodiamond concentrations found in North America and Canada from around 14,000 years ago.  There was one study that found them in mammoth tusks.  There also isn't a very good transition in radio carbon dates from the Paleo people of the east coast to the Paleo people of Florida.  The Paleo people in FL aren't as old as the peoples along the Atlantic coast but I believe they are older than any other paleo people.  There is about a 2,000 year old difference.  Yes, bison and elk are big, but something happened to transition FL from praries to what it became in the early Archaic period.  All the points you listed are Paleo points IMO, Suwannee's being the latest as they have been found in the Bolen level.  Dalton's in FL are Clovis age.  A Redstone is just a regional Clovis IMO.


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## Bow Only (Sep 7, 2009)

Indian Arrowhead Man said:


> When it comes to killing animals with spears or whatever...a comparison to the elephant hunting techniques of Africans in historical times might be relevant.  The African Bushmen (close to being pygmy sized) frequently killed large, dangerous African elephants by making a judicious stab into the animals' bladders.  This resulted in a rather slow and painful death of the elephants over a matter of days during which time the bushmen simply follow and wait.  Similarly, *I don't know that paleoindians necessarily hunted megafauna as often as they did smaller, safer game..*.and when they did hunt mammoths, perhaps they also used a similar strategy as the Bushmen to effect a fatal wound.  If so, there would have been less emphasis on a large blade as a long shaft to penetrate as deeply as possible.


I agree.  I would have only hunted them when I had too.  Eat the easy food first.


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## Nicodemus (Sep 7, 2009)

Interestin` topic. The similarities between the Solutrian and Clovis stonework is remarkable, especially considerin` that the Atlantic Ocean separates them. The way both people prepared their core stones is uncanny. One major difference though, the Soutrians did heat treat, the Clovis people did not. Or, at least I have never seen, or heard of a heat treated Clovis.

As far as Clovis points in mammoth kill sites, there was a complete skeleton, of a mature mammoth found at the Naco site, in Arizona with either 7, or 9 Clovis points found in situ. This animal got away from the hunters, and died without bein` found, because the skeleton was all in one piece, with no scar marks on the bones. Most of the points were in the rear area of the mammoth, showin` that these Paleo people used the same thechniques as modern day pygmies use, in killin` elephants. This does not prove that mamoths were a staple of their weapons, but they did hunt them to some extent. I`m sure horses and camels were more utilized.


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## Bow Only (Sep 7, 2009)

Nicodemus said:


> Interestin` topic. The similarities between the Solutrian and Clovis stonework is remarkable, especially considerin` that the Atlantic Ocean separates them. The way both people prepared their core stones is uncanny. One major difference though, *the Soutrians did heat treat,* the Clovis people did not. Or, at least I have never seen, or heard of a heat treated Clovis.
> 
> As far as Clovis points in mammoth kill sites, there was a complete skeleton, of a mature mammoth found at the Naco site, in Arizona with either 7, or 9 Clovis points found in situ. This animal got away from the hunters, and died without bein` found, because the skeleton was all in one piece, with no scar marks on the bones. Most of the points were in the rear area of the mammoth, showin` that these Paleo people used the same thechniques as modern day pygmies use, in killin` elephants. This does not prove that mamoths were a staple of their weapons, but they did hunt them to some extent. I`m sure horses and camels were more utilized.



They also used indirect percussion, but not all of them.  Not all of them heat treated material either.  Odd how some would and some would not.  I would postulate that once heat altering flint was discovered, because of competition for food and resources, the technique was not spread among other clans or peoples.


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## Nicodemus (Sep 7, 2009)

That`s right! I had forgot about the indirect percussion. Those laurel leaf blades are among the finest stone work I`ve ever seen.


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## schreck_1 (Sep 8, 2009)

Great topic and great discussion!  Thanks to all that posted for sharing your knowledge and opinions.


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## Indian Arrowhead Man (Sep 8, 2009)

Nicodemus said:


> As far as Clovis points in mammoth kill sites, there was a complete skeleton, of a mature mammoth found at the Naco site, in Arizona with either 7, or 9 Clovis points found in situ. This animal got away from the hunters, and died without bein` found, because the skeleton was all in one piece, with no scar marks on the bones. Most of the points were in the rear area of the mammoth, showin` that these Paleo people used the same thechniques as modern day pygmies use, in killin` elephants. This does not prove that mamoths were a staple of their weapons, but they did hunt them to some extent. I`m sure horses and camels were more utilized.



Thanks for reminding me of that. I read that years ago but had forgotten.  So yes, that WOULD account for Clovis points being used as spearheads but left in an animal, as an answer to my question to NCHillbilly.


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## NCHillbilly (Sep 8, 2009)

IAM, the site that NIC mentioned is one of the ones I was thinking of. I have some books at home with some more data, I'll get back to you when I have a chance to look it up. As for the bison and small points, I didn't say that they weren't used, I said that they were used as part of a system that imvolved riding a horse up to a couple feet away from the bison. Small points help with penetration when used with short, low cast bows like the ones common for horseback use. These same Indians quickly adopted large steel trade points when they became available. The fact that bison have been killed with small _arrow_ points does not neccessarily mean that large points were never used to hunt mammoth with _spears_. Not all Clovis points were big, either-some are only a couple inches long.I totally agree that most of the Clovis (and other) points saw double duty as knives. As for heat treating  not making rock brittle or even making it more flexible-gimme a break. I'm a flintknapper. I've worked literally tons of rock over the years-both raw and heat-treated material. Heat treated material is absolutely and certainly more brittle and considerable _less_ flexible than raw stone. I usually won't put a heat-treated point on a hunting arrow, if that tells you anything.Get back with me on that one when you've done some knapping. As for the .30/06 bullet is the same as a pointy bone on a stick argument,  that's comparing apples to turnips, or even muskrats. A .30/06 kills not by poking a small hole, but by shock and massive trauma caused by over two thousand foot-pounds of kinetic energy that the bullet hits the animal with. A bullet damages tissue far beyond the entry hole. An arrow has very, very  little KI, it kills by hemmorhage because it _cuts_ through meat and organs. A dull broadhead or a round field point is pretty much useless for hunting. If you shoot an animal directly in the heart with a pointy round arrowhead, it will eventually kill it, but you may never  find it. A sharp stone point with the same hit would pile the animal up in a hurry. If you shoot it anywhere else with the pointy round point, you're probably never seeing your deer again, and you won't even have a blood trail. Why do you think all state laws require broadheads to hunt big game with, and field points are illegal for hunting everywhere that I know of.


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## Indian Arrowhead Man (Sep 20, 2009)

NCHillbilly said:


> These same Indians quickly adopted large steel trade points when they became available.



Please provide some references that show "large steel trade points" being used by Indians to tip their arrows.  All of the references/photos I've found show metal points that were little larger -if at all- than stone arrowheads.




NCHillbilly said:


> The fact that bison have been killed with small _arrow_ points does not neccessarily mean that large points were never used to hunt mammoth with _spears_.



I agree. My point was that large points are not necessary to kill large animals.




NCHillbilly said:


> As for heat treating not making rock brittle or even making it more flexible-gimme a break. I'm a flintknapper. I've worked literally tons of rock over the years-both raw and heat-treated material. Heat treated material is absolutely and certainly more brittle and considerable less flexible than raw stone.



Then why did Indians heat treat flint if that made the flint so brittle and fragile?  

I suspect that heat treating flint is like heat treating metal; done improperly it will damage the material, whether metal or stone.



NCHillbilly said:


> A bullet damages tissue far beyond the entry hole.



Yes, I believe I mentioned that.




NCHillbilly said:


> An arrow has very, very little KI, it kills by hemmorhage because it cuts through meat and organs.



So something like an ice pick would not be a good weapon because it would only poke very slender holes in organs...?  Wouldn't poking holes in organs also cause hemorrhage?

Okay, all semantical jousting aside.  I agree that larger projectiles cause more damage IF they can be thrust as deeply and IF they're resilient enough to deal with running into a bone.  The thing about projectiles is that they must be propelled.   The reason for small arrowheads was that the Native American bow was not an especially powerful weapon as far as propelling missiles.  But the fact remains that it was invented and it was used.  So it obviously offered some advantages over hand propelled or atlatl launched missiles- and it was used to bring down large bison.

Again, I just don't think that the hunting projectile of choice was necessarily a broad bladed Clovis point.  That's all.


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## Bow Only (Sep 20, 2009)

Indian Arrowhead Man said:


> Please provide some references that show "large steel trade points" being used by Indians to tip their arrows.  All of the references/photos I've found show metal points that were little larger -if at all- than stone arrowheads.
> I agree. My point was that large points are not necessary to kill large animals.
> Then why did Indians heat treat flint if that made the flint so brittle and fragile?
> I suspect that heat treating flint is like heat treating metal; done improperly it will damage the material, whether metal or stone.
> ...


So when was the bow invented?


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## TNGIRL (Sep 21, 2009)

I've drank 2 cups of coffee on this thread!!! Thanks !! And I really enjoyed the pics from 2006 Nic. All this info is wonderful to file back into my brain. But I go medical on some of these questioins. My thoughts are that once a man figured these skills out (the ones unable to do this were removed from the gene pool early on)and was able to achieve and impliment them....he got another bump in his brain!!! He's evolving like he's meant to.


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## Indian Arrowhead Man (Sep 23, 2009)

Bow Only said:


> So when was the bow invented?



Supposedly around 1500 - 2500 years ago here in N.A...but I personally think it could have been invented back in the early archaic (at least in some areas) as evidenced by tiny, 'bird point' sized points from the period such as Fox Valley points of the Ohio Valley.


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## Bow Only (Sep 24, 2009)

Indian Arrowhead Man said:


> Supposedly around 1500 - 2500 years ago here in N.A...but I personally think it could have been invented back in the early archaic (at least in some areas) as evidenced by tiny, 'bird point' sized points from the period such as Fox Valley points of the Ohio Valley.



A technology such as the bow would spread very rapidly once introduced to a new culture or people.  I suspect trade was much wider spread in Archaic times than is previous thought and we know they travelled very long distances.  A bow in Archaic times would be reflected in the archaeological record from that era and is not.   As you know, small points don't necessarily mean they are used in a bow.  Looking at the archaeological evidence, I think the population explosion in the early Woodland period was not due to pure coincidence.  I would postulate that within 500 years from invention, all cultures would have adopted the bow as their main weapon for hunting and defense.  
Just look at the point differences between the late Archaic peoples and the middle Woodland peoples.  There you have it.


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