A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. The microliths were used in spear points and arrowheads.
A spear-thrower, spear-throwing lever, or atlatl is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart or javelin-throwing, and includes a bearing surface that allows the user to store energy during the throw.
Clovis points are the characteristically fluted projectile points associated with the New World Clovis culture, a prehistoric Paleo-American culture. They are present in dense concentrations across much of North America and they are largely restricted to the north of South America. There are slight differences in points found in the Eastern United States bringing them to sometimes be called "Clovis-like". Clovis points date to the Early Paleoindian period, with all known points dating from roughly 13,400–12,700 years ago. As an example, Clovis remains at the Murry Springs Site date to around 12,900 calendar years ago. Clovis fluted points are named after the city of Clovis, New Mexico, where examples were first found in 1929 by Ridgely Whiteman.
An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, as well as to fulfill some special purposes such as signaling.
Darts are airborne ranged weapons. They are designed to fly such that a sharp, often weighted point will strike first. They can be distinguished from javelins by the presence of fletching and a shaft that is shorter and/or more flexible. Darts can be propelled by hand or with the aid of a hand-held implement such as a blowgun. They can be distinguished from arrows because they are not used with a bow.
Folsom points are projectile points associated with the Folsom tradition of North America. The style of tool-making was named after the Folsom site located in Folsom, New Mexico, where the first sample was found in 1908 by George McJunkin within the bone structure of an extinct bison, Bison antiquus, an animal hunted by the Folsom people. The Folsom point was identified as a unique style of projectile point in 1926. The Folsom point found in association with the extinct bison bones proved to the scientific community that humans had lived in the Americas thousands of years longer than many had previously believed.
The Folsom tradition is a Paleo-Indian archaeological culture that occupied much of central North America from c. 10800 BCE to c. 10200 BCE. The term was first used in 1927 by Jesse Dade Figgins, director of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The discovery by archaeologists of projectile points in association with the bones of extinct Bison antiquus, especially at the Folsom site near Folsom, New Mexico, established much greater antiquity for human residence in the Americas than the previous scholarly opinion that humans in the Americas dated back only 3,000 years. The findings at the Folsom site have been called the "discovery that changed American archaeology."
McWhinney or McWhinney Heavy Stemmed is a term for a shape of point in prehistoric lithic weapons and tools found primarily in the midwestern United States, dating from the Late Archaic period in the Americas. The McWhinney Heavy Stemmed type has become in some ways a representation of the ambiguous in the field of archaeology. The first to describe the McWhinney point type was J.M. Heilman, based on a surface collection from the McWhinney Village in Preble County, Ohio. Kent Vickery (1972:3) has suggested that McWhinney Heavy Stemmed points, “exhibit considerable stylistic variation, and probably represent several varieties.” The points have been found in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.
Gregory Herman Perino was an American self-taught professional archaeologist, author, consultant, and the last living founder of the Illinois State Archaeological Society. Perino was considered one of the foremost experts on Native American artifacts. He died July 4, 2005, at the age of 91.
The Cooper Bison Kill Site is an archaeological site near Fort Supply in Harper County, Oklahoma, United States. Located along the Beaver River, it was explored in 1993 and 1994 and found to contain artifacts of the Folsom tradition, dated at c.10800 BCE to c. 10,200 BCE in calibrated radiocarbon years. Findings include projectile points, the bow and arrow not yet being in use at this date. The projectile points are the results of hunters killing bison in an arroyo. Known artifacts at the site from this culture are believed to be the results of three different hunts.
The Thunderbird Archaeological District, near Limeton, Virginia, is an archaeological district described as consisting of "three sites—Thunderbird Site, the Fifty Site, and the Fifty Bog—which provide a stratified cultural sequence spanning Paleo-Indian cultures through the end of Early Archaic times with scattered evidence of later occupation."
The East Fork Site is an archaeological site in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. Located south of Batavia, it has yielded artifacts from more cultures than has any other site in Clermont County.
North American hunting technologies begins with the arrival of the Paleo-Natives and continues through to modern times. This article deals exclusively with Aboriginal Canadians and Native Americans in the United States.
Epsilon II is a significant archaeological site on the shores of Monroe Lake in southeastern Monroe County, Indiana, United States. One of the largest preserved sites from its time period in the region, it has been designated a historic site.
Golondrina points are lanceolate spear or dart projectile points, of medium size, dated to the transitional Paleo-Indian Period, between 9000–7000 BP. Golondrina points were attached on split-stem hafts and may have served to bring down medium-sized animals such as deer, as well as functioning as butchering knives. Distribution is widespread throughout most of Texas, and points have also been discovered in Arkansas and Mexico. The concentration of Golondrina specimens is highest across the South Texas Plains, where the point is the most prevalent of Paleo-Indian types and defines a distinctive cultural pattern for the region. The Golondrina point is so named for its flared basal corners ("ears"), which resemble a swallow's split tail. Classification of Golondrina can be difficult because of its similarity to other types, particularly the Plainview point, to which it was originally thought to be related.
The Magic Mountain site is an Archaic and Woodland village site in Jefferson County, Colorado dating from 4999 BC to 1000 AD. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Apex complex is a cultural tradition of the Middle Archaic period. Apex complex artifacts, dated from about 3000 to 500 BC, first appeared in the Magic Mountain site near Apex Creek in Colorado.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the prehistoric people of Colorado, which covers the period of when Native Americans lived in Colorado prior to contact with the Domínguez–Escalante expedition in 1776. People's lifestyles included nomadic hunter-gathering, semi-permanent village dwelling, and residing in pueblos.
The Palos site (Ck-26) is located on the Cal-Sag Canal in Cook County, Illinois, United States, near the city of Chicago. It is classified as a Protohistoric to early Historic site with Upper Mississippian affiliation.
Archeological Site 4-SK-4, nearest to Dorris, California, is a stratified archeological site that was a hunter-gatherer village west of Lower Klamath Lake. The site is located in the heart of the Klamath Basin wetlands, on the west shores of Sheepy Lake at Sheepy Creek. It has also been known as Nightfire Island and as Sheepy Island. Modern Modocs have called the island Shapasheni, meaning "where the sun and moon live", or "home of the sun and the moon.
