Drs. Smallwood and Jennings authored an article recently published in the journal ‘Scientific Reports’, click to read.

Lithic usewear confirms the function of Wilamaya Patjxa projectile points
Ashley Smallwood , Randall Haas  & Thomas Jennings  (2023)

Approximately 9000 years ago at the Andean highland site of Wilamaya Patjxa, forager communities
interred female and male individuals with projectile points, suggesting that large-mammal hunting
may have been a gender neutral activity among that community. We report a lithic usewear analysis,
which confirms that the ostensible projectile points were indeed used as projectile points. The data
further reveal evidence of cutting and hide scraping consistent with animal processing activities. A
new radiocarbon date shows that the female and male individuals were contemporaries, or nearly so,
sometime between 9.0 and 8.7 cal. ka. These findings support a model of early subsistence practices in
which both female and male individuals at Wilamaya Patjxa hunted large mammals.

Click here to read the full article.