When humans were the hunted: bone-tipped arrow points in Prehispanic Sierras of Córdoba, Argentina

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the techno-typological study of seven bone projectile points closely associated with a burial assemblage excavated from El Alto 5 (~550 cal BP, Sierras of Córdoba, Argentina). The bone points provide a comparative model for interpreting the function of arrow points, primarily concerning how archaeologists can accurately differentiate the arrow tips used for warfare or hunting. Bone points have barbed shoulders to resist removal from the wound and serrated stems for secure hafting. They required shafts a few millimeters thicker than stone-tipped arrows for hafting, involving more kinetic energy to inflict severe injuries. Identifying a dark residue spattered over the blades opens the possibility that poison was applied to enhance the effectiveness of the shoot. The study is considered a starting point to build more accurate models to identify interpersonal violence during the Late Prehispanic Period, where most bone points occurred as domestic refuse of campsites.

KEYWORDS:

• Archaeology
• South America
• weapon system
• warfare
• arrow point
• hunting
• mixed economies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15740773.2024.2357541

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (Argentina) [PICT 2016-201-0677] and the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET, Argentina) [PIP 11220200100770CO].

Notes on contributors

Matías E. Medina

Matías E. Medina is an archaeologist primarily interested in multi-resource-based prehispanic economies and how they impacted ancient environments. He is an Independent Researcher of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Researches (CONICET, Argentina) and of the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Museum (National University of La Plata, Argentina). He got the degree of Ph.D. in Archaeology from the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) in 2008. He focused his archaeological research on the Late Prehispanic Period (~1220-330 cal BP) of the Sierras of Córdoba in central Argentina. There, he has led, co-leaded, and participated in different research grant-funded projects about this topic since 2000, where he carried out archaeological surveys, stratigraphic excavations, and the analysis of multiple evidence, including architecture, pollen, faunal, plant, pottery, bone tools, and lithic remains. Moreover, he also made significant contributions to the palaeobiology of the mountain biota, applying archaeological data to improve wildlife management decisions. He published the results of my multidisciplinary research in books and high-impact peer-reviewed journals from Spain, the USA, the UK, Germany, Serbia, Slovenia, Chile, Argentina, Australia, and France.

Cristian Lallami

Cristian Lallami is an undergraduate student of Anthropology from the National University of Rosario (Argentina). He is finishing his first-degree thesis focused on the lithic technology of semi-sedentary people from Sierras of Córdoba (Argentina), under the supervision of Ph.D. Sebastián Pastor.

Sebastián Pastor

Sebastian Pastor is an Independent Researcher of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Researches (CONICET, Argentina) and of the Regional Institute of Socio-Cultural Studies (IRES-CONICET). He got the degree of Ph.D. in Anthropology from the National University of La Plata (Argentina) in 2007. He finished his postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology of the University of Sevilla and Institute of Heritage Sciences of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in 2012, under the supervision of Leonardo Garcia San Juan and Felipe Criado Boado. He is primarily interested in the cultural evolution of mixed economies from central Argentina, including the Sierras of Córdoba and the Llanos of La Rioja, where led, co-leaded, and participated in different research projects since 1995. He also made significant contributions to the archaeological knowledge of early peopling of the Americas, rock art, and the early post-contact native people’s life ways (XVI-XVII centuries AD). S. Pastor published about archaeology in books and peer-reviewed journals from Spain, Colombia, the United States, the UK, Slovenia, Chile, and Argentina. Moreover, he participated in numerous scientific meetings in Argentina and Europe. He is also a supervisor of Ph.D. Dissertations in the National Universities of Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Tucumán (Argentina), which are focused on the archaeology of Sierras of Córdoba.