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Pictured
is a collection of Clovis point replicas and casts in the
archaeology lab at Kent State University. CREDIT: Kent State
University
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Approximately 13,500 years after nomadic Clovis hunters crossed
the frozen land bridge from Asia to North America, researchers are
still asking questions and putting together clues as to how they
not only survived in a new landscape with unique new challenges
but adapted with stone tools and weapons to thrive for thousands
of years.
Kent State University's Metin Eren, Ph.D., director of archaeology
and assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology in the
College of Arts and Sciences, and his colleagues are not only asking
these questions but testing their unique new theories. They want
to better understand the engineering, techniques and purposes of
Clovis weapon technologies. Specifically, they study stone projectile
points, such as arrowheads and spear points, made by flint knapping,
the ancient practice of chipping away at the edges of rocks to shape
them into weapons and tools.
In their most recent article published online in the Journal
of Archaeological Science, Eren and his co-authors from Southern
Methodist University (Brett A. Story, David J. Meltzer and Kaitlyn
A. Thomas), University of Tulsa (Briggs Buchanan), Rogers State
University (Brian N. Andrews), Texas A&M University and the
University of Missouri (Michael J. O'Brien) explain the flint knapping
technique of "fluting" the Clovis points, which could be considered
the first truly American invention. This singular technological
attribute, the flake removal or "flute," is absent from the stone-tool
repertoire of Pleistocene Northeast Asia, where the Clovis ancestors
came from.
Archaeologists have debated for years as to why the Clovis added
this flute feature to their points. Basically, it is a thin groove
chipped off at the base on both sides, perhaps first made by accident,
which logically makes it very thin and brittle. However, after several
types of testing, the researchers have reported that this thinning
of the base can make it better able to withstand and absorb the
shock of colliding with a hard object, such as the bone of a mastodon
or bison.
This fluted point turned out to be an invention that allowed
these colonizers to travel great distances with some confidence
that their weaponry would hold up at least long enough until they
could find the next rock quarry to make new points.
"It was risky and couldn't have been easy to learn how to do
this effectively," Eren explained. "Archaeological evidence suggests
that up to one out of five points break when you try to chip this
fluted base, and it takes at least 30 minutes to produce a finished
specimen. So, though it was a time-consuming process and risky technique,
successfully fluted Clovis points would have been extremely reliable,
especially while traveling great distances into unknown regions
on a new continent. They needed points that would hold up and be
used over and over again."
In their article, the researchers compared standardized computer
models of fluted and unfluted points, as well as experimental "real-world"
test specimens, and found that the fluted-point base does in fact
act as a "shock absorber," increasing point robustness and ability
to withstand physical stress via stress redistribution and damage
relocation. In other words, upon impact, the brittle base of the
spearhead crumples and absorbs some energy, which prevents fatal
breaks elsewhere on the point so it could be reused.
"It's amazing to think that people 12,000 years ago were flaking
shock absorbers and engineering stone weapons in a way that it took
21st century modern engineering to figure out," Eren said.
"As engineers, we don't typically get to work with archaeologists,
but this project has allowed us the exciting opportunity to provide
additional tools from engineering mechanics to explore how fluting
affects the behavior of Clovis points," Story said.
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