1 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Michelle C. Langley (ed.), Osseous Projectile Weaponry, Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology, DOI 10.1007/978-94-024-0899-7_1 Chapter 1 Late Pleistocene Osseous Projectile Technology and Cultural Variability Michelle C. Langley M.C. Langley (*) Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Archaeology and Natural History, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia e-mail: michelle.langley@anu.edu.au Abstract Modern human evolution and the development of cultural complexity and variability during the Pleistocene have long been central issues in archaeology. This chapter situates the study of osseous projectile weaponry in this wider context of archaeological research, before outlining the challenges that this field currently faces. A brief over- view of the evidence for Pleistocene osseous projectile weaponry is then presented in order to demonstrate the tem- poral and spatial breadth of these material culture items, as well as their ability to contribute to wider anthropological debates about human uniqueness and cultural variability. Keywords Hunting • Fighting • Spear • Harpoon • Fishhook • Bow-and-arrow • Spearthrower • Boomerang Introduction By the end of the Pleistocene (10,000 radiocarbon years BP or 11,700 cal BP), modern humans ( Homo sapiens sapiens) had already spent tens of thousands of years experimenting with and perfecting an astounding range of projectile weap- onry manufactured from hard animal materials (bone, antler, ivory, horn, shell). Projectile weaponry, being launched weapons used in both hunting and warfare, are a technical solution ensuring the capture of vital nutritional and raw material resources used in various aspects of hunter-gatherer life. Projectile point tips, foreshafts, fishhooks, boomerangs, spearthrowers, and bow components, not to mention the vari- ous tools used in the manufacture of these weapons (such as spear-straighteners) were all fashioned out of the most durable of organic materials available. The selection of these raw materials for making (arguably) the most important tools for day-to-day life, was the result of deliberate choices made by numerous temporally and spatially dispersed communities. These choices reflect an understanding of the physical prop- erties of osseous materials that render them supremely suit- able for use as projectile weaponry. Despite these factors, however, weaponry made from osseous (bone, antler, ivory) materials have consistently received less attention in the archaeological literature than other artefact classes, particularly their lithic counterparts. This situation is exemplified in the recently published Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter- Gatherers (Cummings et al. 2014) where both lithic and ceramic (among other) technologies comprise a chapter each, while mentions of bone and antler technology (not lim- ited to weapons technology) mentioned through the entire volume could fit on one to two pages. Given that a survey of ethnographic hunter-gatherer societies found that 42.37 % employed projectile points manufactured from bone and/or antler (Waguespak et al. 2009), this appears to be a tremen- dous oversight. While lithic technology is less susceptible to preservation biases and taphonomic filters than organic-based evidence, focus on this class of material culture alone results in a perspective that is too narrow a sub-set on which to construct robust frameworks of Pleistocene lifeways and cultural vari- ability. Furthermore, as the overwhelming majority of archaeological remains directly associated with hunting are constructed from bone, antler, ivory, and shell elements, integration of this organic dataset is critical if we are to move towards more holistic understandings of technology, econ- omy, and society during the Pleistocene epoch. This volume aims to contribute to this endeavor through providing the academic community with a summary of the osseous projectile weaponry thus far recovered from Pleistocene contexts in Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Americas. While the inevitable constraints