Recognizes and characterizes stone age weapons using controlled and replicative experiments

Casts new light on the role of weapon technologies in shaping the course of human evolution

Maximizes readers insights into archaeological perspectives from a variety of time periods and from all five continents with a large assortment of new analytical and experimental studies

Includes supplementary material: [...]

1
When is a Point a Projectile? Morphology, Impact Fractures, Scientific
Rigor, and the Limits of Inference.- Identifying Weapon Delivery Systems Using Macrofracture Analysis
and Fracture Propagation Velocity: A Controlled Experiment.- 3 Experiments in
Fracture Patterns and Impact Velocity with Replica Hunting Weapons from Japan.-
4 Thirty
Years of Experimental Research on the Breakage Patterns of Stone Age Osseous
Points. Overview, Methodological Problems and Current Perspectives.- 5 Levers, Not Springs: How a
Spearthrower Works and Why it Matters.- 6 Hunting Lesions in Pleistocene and Early
Holocene European Bone Assemblages and their Implications for Our Knowledge on
the Use and Timing of Lithic Projectile Technology.- 7 Edge Damage on
500-thousand-year-old Spear Tips from Kathu Pan 1, South Africa: the Combined
Effects of Spear Use and Taphonomic Processes.- 8 Projectile Damage and Point Morphometry at the Early Middle Paleolithic
Misliya Cave, Mount Carmel (Israel): Preliminary Results and Interpretations.- 9 Morpho-metric Variability of Early
Gravettian Tanged "Font-Robert" Points, and Functional Implications.- 10 Early Gravettian Projectile
Technology in Southwestern Iberian Peninsula: the Double Backed and Bipointed
Bladelets of Vale Boi (Portugal).- 11 Uncertain Evidence for Weapons and Craft Tools: Functional
Investigations of Australian Microliths.- 12 Projectiles and Hafting Technology.- 13 Testing Archaeological Approaches
to Determining Past Projectile Delivery Systems using Ethnographic and
Experimental Data.- 14 Penetration,
Tissue Damage, and Lethality of Wood- Versus
Lithic-Tipped Projectiles.- 15 Experimental and Archeological Observations of Northern Iberian
Peninsula Middle Paleolithic Mousterian Point Assemblages. Testing the
Potential Use of Throwing Spears among Neanderthals.- 16 More to the Point: Developing an
Multi-Faceted Approach to Investigating the Curation of Magdalenian Osseous
Projectile Points.- 17 Survivorship Distributions in Experimental Spear Points: Implications
for Tool Design and Assemblage Formation.- 8 Morphological
Diversification of Stemmed Projectile Points of Patagonia (Southernmost South
America). Assessing Spatial Patterns by Means of Phylogenies and Comparative
Methods.- 19 Hunting Technologies during the Howiesons Poort at
Sibudu Cave: What They Reveal about Human Cognition in KwaZulu-Natal, South
Africa, between ~ 65 and 62 ka.- 20 Summary and Conclusions.