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.
Paleo-Native Period
Paleo-Native Weapons Technologies The Clovis spear point is found at nearly all locations in North America. It is defined by its relatively large size and fluted morphology that allows it to be hafted onto the end of a spear. It is of some debate if this was a handheld thrusting spear, or a throwing spear, or an atlatl. It could well have been used for all three, including knives, as the bifacial Clovis point is very well made and utilitarian. Typically the points are made from high-quality silicates such as flint, or chert. Often these stone tools are found hundreds of miles from their source stone in caches of semi-complete blanks. It appears they would bury some good material they had brought with them when they traveled, and sometimes either forget where they buried it, or possibly found more high-quality materiel in the new location, and had no need to retrieve the caches.
Hunting Tests have been done on the velocity of these large bifaces, and it has been clearly shown that they are capable of wounding and killing modern elephants. The occurrence of tool marks, and bifaces found at kill sites leaves no doubt that Clovis people did in fact kill and hunt mastodons, mammoths, camel, horses, and bison. But could this hunting have caused the mass extinction that came at the end of the Pleistocene, or was it the climate change that did it? A third theory is also emerging, that the colonists and possibly domesticated dogs brought disease with them that caused this extinction.
But the few species that were hunted by humans that became extinct doesn't account for the loss of so many species. The loss of some cornerstone species typically can result in an implosion of population and diversity similar to what we see during the transition from Pleistocene to Holocene. This was probably caused by some loss of major species of vegetation.
"Clovis First" There was a previously accepted idea called Clovis First. This theory does not mean that Clovis showed up and had the fluted biface technology, but assumes that over about 1,000 years the original settlers developed the technology, and Clovis was the first successful material culture in North America that became widespread. However, new dates from the Cooper's Ferry site in Idaho circa 15,600 YBP, provide clear evidence for Western Stemmed Tradition points predating evidence of Clovis by >2000 years. <Davis, Loren G. et al 2022 Dating of a large tool assemblage at the Cooper’s Ferry site (Idaho, USA) to ~15,785 cal yr B.P. extends the age of stemmed points in the Americas>
As Waguespack states "Based on optimal foraging models, it is argued that selective predation on high ranked resources, specifically megafauna, is predicted in colonization settings where large game is abundant and human population densities are low." Most people that subscribe to this school of thought tend to believe in the specialized large game hunter societies. This is disputed by some as it has low ethnographic evidence, but the environment was quite different at the time, and with the right technologies and techniques this highly mobile hunter that depended on large game could be reasonable.
Distribution The distribution of projectile points, and their variation in morphology tend to move from a north to south gradient, following the model that humans came in from the north and traveled south. Currently what we would like to find in the archaeological record, and what we actually find are disjointed. Even with accurate dates, and faunal floral assemblages, the specific way that these elements interacted is elusive, and remains in the theoretical environment. However these ideas, and the studies that result from them are what has driven information in this field for the past half century.
A third and less subscribed to theory is called the Solutrean hypothesis. Bruce Bradley and Dennis Stanford, have recently resurrected an idea from the 1880s, Charles Conrad Abbott 1881, that claimed that the early colonists came from European roots. Although the Solutrean bifaces look similar to the Clovis technology, lacking only the flute, they are separated in time by about 5,000 years. Solutrian industry lasted from 20,500 BCE, to 17,000 BCE, while Clovis is popularly held to be from 11,500 BCE. Even in the face of modern dating techniques, Bradley and Stanford have continued to lecture, and published papers pursuing this model.
The theory is based on atlatl hunting strategies utilized in a maritime arctic type environment. Stanford and Bradley theorize that people hunting seals would be moving across the ice sheets in groups so they could cover the most breathing holes as prescribed by this technique. In his studies they found that the seals today from northern Europe and north eastern Canada all migrate to Greenland. The theory is that people using something very much like an atlatl to hunt seals and other large aquatic mammals could have followed the wrong group of seals back to North America, and then used this spear based bifacial technology to adapt to the new environment. This would mean that these Paleo-Natives probably had boat technology, and used this spear hunting technology from the ocean, and adapted it to large terrestrial game. The seemingly enormous time gap between Solutrian and Clovis is overcome by the rising sea levels, and peoples dependence on aquatic resources.
This theory makes sense because without a good knowledge of the floral assemblages it would be difficult, if not risky to depend on plant resources for survival. Meat from hunting is reliably nontoxic. As reported by Dennis Stanford in recent lectures (2009), there have been mammoth bones dredged off the shores of Delaware in the Atlantic Ocean, and one of the bones actually has a projectile point in it that is possibly pre-Clovis, but morphologically it is lacking the flute, and nearly identical to the Solutrean biface. This model is contradicting to the genetic mapping based on mitochondrial DNA though, and has many people that disagree. The similarities of the bifacial technology can be explained by independent invention.
The only empirically based evidence is that Clovis people hunted large game. They also killed other small game, but it is always found alongside large game at kill sites. The Clovis point can be found in every corner of the continental United States. This means that at some point either a highly mobile group of hunter-gatherers persisted across the continent, or that a technology was spread across the continent because it was so successful. These points are large enough to kill, and are found at multiple kill sites with megafauna that is now extinct. Studies have shown that even light hunting on large animals can cause extinction. But most data supports the idea that it was climate change that caused the extinctions.
Archaic-Native Period
Production Rate of Weapons Many improvements in technology came about through the Archaic Native's increase in social connection. This had many advantages in technology, economics and society. The more constant interaction between groups of Archaic Natives gave opportunity to trade many things with each other. Tools, weapons, strategies, techniques and ideas were all exchanged more frequently and with a wider range of people than the Paleo-Natives. Obviously, this universally improved the living condition of everyone involved and sped the advancement throughout the Early, Middle and Late Archaic age. This speed in technological advancement increased steadily beginning with a slow progression in the Early Archaic age, and ending much more quickly with the immense change from solitary hunting in the Late Archaic age. Projectile technology greatly drew hunters of almost all game together to exchange techniques and technology. This increased interaction not only provided opportunity to learn or teach practices, but to also band together and hunt as a team. This, along with technology and environmental opportunity, helped define the trend of the Archaic Native's integration, practices and social interaction as opposed to solitary hunting. The production of weapons in California increased during the Archaic-Native Period as a result of an increase in social interaction and technology exchange between groups. The more frequent interaction led to the development of specialized hunting techniques and tools, including harpoons, spears, and nets. The exchange of ideas and technologies also fueled the gradual increase in technological advancement throughout the region, leading to the adoption of advanced hunting strategies for marine mammals.
Use of Natural Resources
One of the distinctions the Archaic Natives had from their predecessors were the characteristics of more complex weaponry. Expendable, smaller projectiles were favored over the larger melee weapons. There were many fuels for change outside of the obvious advantages over this type of weapon in use though; the environment being one, if not the only factor. The newer availability of resources in the post-glacial age not only changed the abundance of weapons, but also the type. Being less concerned with the availability of local weapon materials, the Archaic Natives favored cheap, fast and easy weapons. This meant, for most Archaic Natives, projectiles. Coastal foraging was an important part of life for Archaic Native Americans on California's Channel Islands. They harvested plant resources from the coastal environment, including kelp, seaweed, berries and seeds. They also collected birds' eggs and hunted small game such as squirrels and rabbits. The Natives also fashioned tools and weapons from local materials such as flint, obsidian, and bone. Other uses of natural resources include fibers from various plants to weave fishing lines. Plants such as yucca, nettle, Indian hemp, and milkweed are harvested and prepared to create different fishing lines.
Projectile Weapons