A modern butchering experiment using replicas of Stone Age tools raises new questions about whether prehistoric humans regularly hunted large animals such as bison or mammoths.
According to a recent experiment on bison butchering, the stone "Clovis spear points" used by prehistoric hunters were highly effective in cutting meat from the carcasses of large animals. This finding adds complexity to our understanding of prehistoric hunting activities. The research findings were published on April 8 in the journal Archaeological Science Reports.
Archaeologists collaborated with modern hunters to compare the effectiveness of two replicas of prehistoric stone tools in extracting meat from animal carcasses. They used a bison that had been ethically slaughtered, weighing over 450 kilograms.
Metin Eren, the lead author of the paper and a Ph.D. candidate at Kent State University in Ohio, USA, stated, "This study actually demonstrates that Clovis spear points were more effective than the large stone flakes traditionally considered as butchering tools."
Prehistoric stone blades, known as Clovis spear points, may have been used as weapons or butchering tools. Image Source: Metin Eren
Five hunters completely butchered a bison carcass using two types of stone tools in just 3 hours and 10 minutes. The Clovis spear point had a butchering efficiency of 0.38 kilograms of meat per minute, while handheld stone blade tools processed 0.34 kilograms of meat per minute.
Mounting the Clovis spear point on a wooden handle also had the added benefit of not injuring any users, whereas four out of five experts sustained minor cuts when using handheld stone blades.
However, the Clovis spear point also had its drawbacks, requiring frequent resharpening during the butchering process, with three out of ten stone tools breaking. John Shea of Stony Brook University, who was not involved in the study, stated, "They've shown that Clovis points work well, but they've also shown that Clovis points break frequently. That's important because these things aren't easy to make."
Nevertheless, prehistoric humans in the Americas may have adopted "these labor-intensive, easily breakable artifacts as part of a display of group cooperation and lithic skill," Shea said.
Another surprising finding was how the Clovis spear points broke, which was almost identical to the way another Clovis spear point on a throwing spear broke when thrown at an elephant carcass in a previous study. Vance Holliday of the University of Arizona remarked, "From the standpoint of how Clovis points were being used, the possibility that breakage fractures were mistaken for impact fractures is eye-opening."
This suggests that broken Clovis spear points found in prehistoric archaeological sites may not represent "conclusive evidence of hunting" as researchers previously thought. Instead, Eren said, they could demonstrate how people "encountered a dead animal and butchered it for food." In other words, the inference of prehistoric hunting and scavenging behaviors becomes more nuanced.
Related Paper Information: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2024.104480
