Historical and ethnographic sources depict use of portable braced shaft weapons, or pikes, in megafauna hunting and defense during Late Holocene millennia in North and South America, Africa, Eurasia and Southeast Asia. Given the predominance of megafauna in Late Pleistocene North America during the centuries when Clovis points appeared and spread across much of the continent, 13,050-12,650 years ago, braced weapons may have been used in hunting of megaherbivores and defense against megacarnivores.
“This ancient Native American design was an amazing innovation in hunting strategies,” said Dr. Scott Byram, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.
“This distinctive Indigenous technology is providing a window into hunting and survival techniques used for millennia throughout much of the world.”
The team’s findings may help solve a puzzle that has fueled decades of debate in archaeology circles: how did communities in North America actually use Clovis points, which are among the most frequently unearthed items from the Ice Age?
Named for the town of Clovis, New Mexico, where the shaped stones were first recovered nearly a century ago, Clovis points were shaped from rocks, such as chert, flint or jasper.
They range from the size of a person’s thumb to that of a midsize iPhone and have a distinct, razor-sharp edge and fluted indentations on both sides of their base.
Thousands of them have been recovered across the United States — some have even been unearthed within preserved mammoth skeletons.
“Clovis points are often the only recovered part of a spear,” said University of California, Berkeley’s Dr. Jun Sunseri.
“The intricately designed bone shafts at the end of the weapon are sometimes found, but the wood at the base of the spear and the pine pitch and lacing that help make them function as a complete system have been lost to time.”
“Plus, research silos limit that kind of systems thinking about prehistoric weaponry. And…
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