Beveled retouch on stone projectile points has often been considered as a device to spin and stabilize a projectile. A recent paper showed that a beveled point will spin a small shaft under tightly controlled laboratory conditions. However, this experiment has little relevance for real projectiles such as atlatl darts, which flex dramatically and spin unevenly inflight, quite independent of point form. The spinning is related to the flexibility of the dart, which is necessary for spearthrower functión. A beveled point cannot spin a dart in the air, but is likely to cause some rotation when encountering a solid target like flesh. Beveled points are probably not related to spinning either darts or arrows inflight and present a good example of why we need to have both theoretical understanding and experimental observations of details of projectile behavior before interpreting artifacts. Spinning in a carcass could make beveled points more lethal, but the suggestion that beveling mostly results from sharpening and other modification of stone points remains the best explanation.

The British Museum's Aztec atlatl is one of their most famous Mesoamerican objects, yet it has not been studied as a weapon in light of current knowledge of spear-throwers, and the details necessary to do so have not been published. Close examination and experimental replication shows that although it is ornately decorated, it is a serviceable spear-thrower. While evidence of actual use of this specimen is ambiguous, we can at least accept the form as an example of working weapons of Contact period Mesoamerica. The actual effects and circumstances of atlatl use against the Spanish and others are difficult to judge from surviving accounts. The iconography of the decoration, as in other instances, associated this atlatl with elite warfare and deities of war and sacrifice.

Cahal Tok (Place of Flint) is a limestone rise with some structural evidence, associated with the previously designated LDF Chert Site, close to the ceremonial center of El Pilar. Excavations uncovered evidence that during the Late Classic period, specialized flintknappers produced bifaces, primarily chert axes, at the Cahol Tok locus, first on a cleared limestone shelf then on a prepared cobble platform. Small flakes remained in situ whereas much of the larger debris was deposited to the east off the edge of the platform and into the LDF debitage dump. The identification of a specialized manufacturing locale near the ceremonial precinct of a major center is unusual in Maya archaeology. Central control of an important industry may be implied, although knapping could equally well be organized more independently. We expect that small industrial areas are actually present at most large sites, but may often be difficult to recognize.

A set of gunflints and other artefacts produced by Fred Snare at Brandon is an example of ways in which craftsmen in a declining trade attempted to create new markets by introducing new techniques and forms, and finding new ways to sell traditional skills. Sample sets and artefacts made for collectors reflect how some gunflint knappers, drawing on romantic conceptions of their craft as ‘heritage’, assigned new meanings to the flint industry as part of a survival strategy for an obsolescent trade.

In crosses between inbred lines, linear regression can be used to estimate the correlation of markers with a trait of interest; these marker effects then allow marker assisted selection (MAS) for quantitative traits. Usually a subset of markers to include in the model must be selected: no completely satisfactory method of doing this exists. We show that replacing this selection of markers by ridge regression can improve the mean response to selection and reduce the variability of selection response.

In addition to archaeologists who make stone tools for experimental purposes, there is a growing number of flintknappers who make lithic artifacts for fun and for profit. The scale of non-academic knapping is little known to archaeologists, and is connected to a flourishing market for antiquities, fakes, replicas, and modern lithic art. Modern stone tools are being produced in vast numbers, and are inevitably muddling the prehistoric record. Modern knappers exploit some material sources heavily, and their debitage creates new sites and contaminates old quarry areas. Modern knapping is, however, a potential source of archaeological insights, and a bridge between the professional community and the interested public. Modern knapping also is creating a “twentieth-century stone age,” and archaeologists working with lithic artifacts need to be aware of the problems and potentials.

Artifacts from 24 chipping stations and a lithic scatter from the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada were analyzed by refitting conjoinable flakes to original cores. Artifacts represented debitage from the initial reduction of locally-available low-quality chalcedony nodules for the eventual production of flake tools. The refitting analysis allowed the debitage to be divided into four patterns that roughly correlate with variation in the quality of the raw material. All result from the same strategy of reduction aimed at producing as many usable flakes as possible from low-quality material. Such relatively unproductive sites are rarely studied in detail because they require intensive analysis, but were probably an important part of prehistoric resource systems.