Abstract The prehistoric production of composite technologies throughout human evolution was facilitated greatly by the use of adhesives. One such technology was projectile weaponry, which used adhesive to attach a stone point to a wooden shaft. Prehistoric projectile weaponry is often studied via experimental archaeology, which recreates ancient technologies to understand their manufacture and function. Here, we explore whether a modern thermoplastic adhesive can serve as a suitable replacement for two organic adhesives that would have been used by past peoples – pine rosin and hide glue – in modern experimental tests of prehistoric weaponry. We conducted a ballistics experiment and shot groups of stone-tipped arrows, each group hafted with one of the three adhesives, and assessed the haft bond failure rate. The modern thermoplastic adhesive was similar to that of the pine rosin and significantly failed less often than the hide glue. We conclude that in some cases modern thermoplastic adhesive can be substituted for organic-based adhesives in experimental archaeology. Our results also show that hafting bond failure rate was significantly different between the pine rosin and the hide glue, suggesting that prehistoric hunter-gatherers faced costs or benefits in selecting adhesives for hafting.

中文翻译：

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现代热塑性塑料（热胶）与有机基粘合剂和史前弹道实验中的半轴粘合故障率

摘要 粘合剂的使用极大地促进了人类进化过程中复合技术的史前生产。其中一项技术是射弹武器，它使用粘合剂将石尖连接到木轴上。史前射弹武器通常通过实验考古学进行研究，该考古学重现古代技术以了解其制造和功能。在这里，我们探讨了现代热塑性粘合剂是否可以作为过去人们在现代史前武器实验测试中使用的两种有机粘合剂——松松香和皮革胶——的合适替代品。我们进行了弹道学实验，射出几组石尖箭，每组都用三种粘合剂中的一种进行箭击，并评估箭杆粘合失败率。现代热塑性粘合剂与松松香的粘合剂相似，与皮革胶相比，失效的频率明显更低。我们得出结论，在某些情况下，现代热塑性粘合剂可以替代实验考古学中的有机粘合剂。我们的结果还表明，松松香和兽皮胶之间的粘合失败率显着不同，这表明史前狩猎采集者在选择用于粘合的粘合剂时面临成本或收益。