arly Mesolithic barbed bone points in the Volga-Oka interfluve

Abstract

Complex research on various barbed points from early Mesolithic sites in the Volga-Oka interfluve showed that they were the heads of different categories of hunting weapons, mostly projectiles. Analyses of their shape, size and use-wear traces made it possible to single out arrowheads, javelin or leister points, throwing and thrusting spearheads and harpoons. The earliest of them emerge in the first half of the Preboreal period, but the full flourishing of various categories of barbed weapons is observed during the late Preboreal to early Boreal periods and later. Some types and variants are numerous and have a long history, while others are represented only by single finds. The former represent more or less standard mass products, while the latter can be treated as experimental artefacts which played no significant role. Together with other types of bone and antler hunting weapons barbed projectile points played an important role in subsistence strategies of the Early Mesolithic population of the Volga-Oka interfluve and their adaptation to the forest environment during the early Holocene.