Spearthrowers-related bone materials from Patagonia

SCHEINSOHN, VIVIAN

San Rafael

Congreso; 12th International Conference ICAZ; 2014

Museo de Historia Natural de San Rafael

The spearthrower (also called throwing-stick or atlatl) is a device for throwing a spear (or dart). Usually it consist of a wood or cane rod (or board) with a groove on the upper surface, and a hook (or thong), made out of wood or bone, at the rear end. Its presence was recorded since Solutrean times in Europe and from then on was recorded in many places in the world as Australia and the Americas. In South America?s Southern Cone, for instance, its presence was well documented in the Andes (where artifacts as bone and stone hooks and cane and wood rods were found, as well as in rock art motifs. Nevertheless, spearthrowers were poorly registered in Patagonia, documented only by the presence of few bone hooks and bone points that were interpreted as foreshafts, and dated within a constricted time span (9000-7000 BP). In previous work I have attributed to this weaponry the variability on bone technology recorded in Patagonia around that date. After that, Patagonian bone tools were had only a couple of designs, as blunted points (retouchers) and bone points interpreted as awls. In this paper I will review the data available for spearthrower-related bone materials from Patagonia (hooks and foreshafts), recording size, raw material selection and design, as well as contextual data that allow me to evaluate the hypothesis that the reduced variation detected in bone technology post- 7000 was due to the abandonment of this weaponry. Also they will be compared with spearthrowers from other parts of the world.