ArticleScientific reports2022
Changes in projectile design and size of prey reveal the central role of Fishtail points in megafauna hunting in South America.
Article in Scientific reports, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Hemisphere-wide evidence of Early Paleoindian megaherbivore specialization.Science advances · 2026Article
- Extinct megafauna dominated human subsistence in southern South America before 11,600 years ago.Science advances · 2025Article
- A morphological, morphometric and geochemical characterization of the El Jobo projectile points - diversity and significance in early human populations across the Americas.Archaeological and anthropological sciences · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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, and show that Fishtails were strongly related to the largest extinct megafaunal species.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.