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My hypothesis on the extinction of the megafauna:

1. Clovis points are fluted. It can take several days to make a single spearpoint. Chipping out the concave channel takes a lot of time and effort, so there had to be a fairly good reason and big payoff for the effort. However, the flutes are perfect for adding poison to the spear point. Examples of readily available poisons are aconitine from monks hood flowers and nicotine from tobacco. For example, the Aleuts used aconitine to kill whales with harpoons launched from kayaks.

2. With an atlatl, a man can throw a dart about 100 yards, but not with the same accuracy as a bow launches an arrow. A single hunter could stalk and launch his poison-laden dart or a group could launch a volley. Killing a single mammoth or giant bison could provide food for a large group for days. The use of atlatls against herds of megafauna would provide a payoff that would justify the effort that goes into a Clovis point. Megafauna herds are easy to track. A hunting group could follow a herd until they had killed the last animal. Abundant food with few hunting fatalities would cause a human population explosion.

3. After the megafauna became extinct, the hunters had to learn new techniques to go after deer, elk, etc. Clovis points would not be worth the effort.

4. The transfer of this knowledge and hunting technique worldwide led to rapid extinction of megafauna over a period of a few thousand years.

First off, why doesn't the article list what kind of flint?? Secondly, the fluting is more for connecting to the shaft instead of a potential carrier mechanism for poison, and lastly, i would speculate that a trained hunter with an atlatl would have very good accuracy, but i believe that the atlatl would have been used more for penetrating power versus distance. I am sure that taking down a mammoth was still up close work.

I like that poison in the flute clovis point theory.

I’m sure the nomads learned real quick that a normal spear in the butt of a mammoth can get you killed. Experimenting with poisons eventually led to the fact that you need a lot of poison to take down the big dinner, which lead to the invention of the clovis point with the poison reservior. We’ll probably never know the thought process and progression of inventions that led to the clovis point.

And not just elephants, early man had to clear the caves of giant bears and sloths. Everyone wanted the cave. I can see the poison spear being the necessary weapon for giant bears!