Beveled Projectile Points and Ballistics Technology

How to Classify the Projectile Points from Monitor Valley, Nevada

Complex Projectile Technology and Homo sapiens Dispersal into Western Eurasia

This paper proposes that complex projectile weaponry was a key strategic innovation driving Late Pleistocene human dispersal into western Eurasia after 50 Ka. It argues that complex projectile weapons of the kind used by ethnographic hunter-gatherers, such as the bow and arrow, and spearthrower and dart, enabled Homo sapiens to overcome obstacles that constrained previous human dispersal from A...

Forensic Ballistics

Forensic ballistics is the application of ballistics for forensic purposes. The basis is formed by wound ballistics. Two main mechanisms of injury are differentiated: the crush-mechanism resulting in the permanent cavity and the stretch-mechanism resulting in the temporary cavity. The missile-tissue interactions such as yawing, deformation, fragmentation, and bone contact are explained here and...

The African Origin of Complex Projectile Technology: An Analysis Using Tip Cross-Sectional Area and Perimeter

Despite a body of literature focusing on the functionality of modern and stylistically distinct projectile points, comparatively little attention has been paid to quantifying the functionality of the early stages of projectile use. Previous work identified a simple ballistics measure, the Tip Cross-Sectional Area, as a way of determining if a given class of stone points could have served as eff...

Hunting lesions caused by osseous projectile points: experimental results and archaeological implications

The identification of projectile impact traces on archaeological faunal remains is an important issue for understanding prehistoric hunting behavior, especially in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. From the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe, and earlier in Africa, projectiles tipped with osseous points were of great importance for subsistence; but thus far, no specific experimental ref...