[Docbarleypop]

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.

[darth]

I came up with the hypothesis when I considered that they only made Clovis points for a time and then they went back to making easier spear points. Of course, the fluting helps in attaching the point to a shaft. However, there is no sign that they had too much trouble attaching later points to the shaft either.

They could test my hypothesis by looking for toxins in the flutes. Maybe a few molecules remain.

I still think that Clovis points had something to do with the extinction of the megafauna. There is certainly a temporal connection.

As for the disease hypothesis, it would be unusual if one parasite or pathogen wiped out multiple species.