Changes in projectile design and size of prey reveals the central role of Fishtail points in megafauna hunting in South America.

PRATES, LUCIANO; RIVERO, DIEGO; PEREZ, S. IVAN

Scientific Reports

Nature

Año: 2022 vol. 12 p. 16964 - 16964

Fishtail projectile points are the earliest widespread projectile type in South America, and share chronology and techno-morphology with Clovis, the oldest North American projectile type. Both were temporally associated with late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions. Although the elusive direct evidence of human exploitation of megafauna in South America had kept Fishtails out of the extinction debate, a recent paper showed a strong relationship between the temporal density and spatial distribution of megafauna and Fishtail projectile points, and proposed that this weapon was designed and used for megafauna hunting, contributing to their extinction. If so, this technology must be distinctly different from post-FPP technologies (i.e., early Holocene projectile points), used for hunting smaller prey, in terms of distribution and functional properties. In this paper, we explore the changes in projectile point technology, as well as the body mass of potential megafaunal prey, andshow that Fishtails were strongly related to the largest extinct megafaunal species.