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A Morphometric Assessment of the Intended Function of Cached Clovis Points

Resource type
Date created
2012
Authors/Contributors
Abstract
A number of functions have been proposed for cached Clovis points. The least complicated hypothesis is that they were intended to arm hunting weapons. It has also been argued that they were produced for use in rituals or in connection with costly signaling displays. Lastly, it has been suggested that some cached Clovis points may have been used as saws. Here we report a study in which we morphometrically compared Clovis points from caches with Clovis points recovered from kill and camp sites to test two predictions of the hypothesis that cached Clovis points were intended to arm hunting weapons: 1) cached points should be the same shape as, but generally larger than, points from kill/camp sites, and 2) cached points and points from kill/camp sites should follow the same allometric trajectory. The results of the analyses are consistent with both predictions and therefore support the hypothesis. A follow-up review of the fit between the results of the analyses and the predictions of the other hypotheses indicates that the analyses support only the hunting equipment hypothesis. We conclude from this that cached Clovis points were likely produced with the intention of using them to arm hunting weapons.
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Published as
Buchanan B, Kilby JD, Huckell BB, O'Brien MJ, Collard M (2012) A Morphometric Assessment of the Intended Function of Cached Clovis Points. PLoS ONE 7(2): e30530. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030530
Publication title
PLoS ONE
Document title
A Morphometric Assessment of the Intended Function of Cached Clovis Points
Date
2012
Volume
7
Issue
2
Publisher DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0030530
Copyright statement
Copyright is held by the author(s).
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You are free to copy, distribute and transmit this work under the following conditions: You must give attribution to the work (but not in any way that suggests that the author endorses you or your use of the work); You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
Scholarly level
Peer reviewed?
Yes
Language
English
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journal.pone_.0030530.pdf 446.75 KB

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