Our newest piece goes beyond the experimental work we published (see below) about the engineering principles of the Clovis point system to explore how revolutionary pike technology is for a range of humans exploring new worlds as we expanded around the globe. See UC Berkeley's "101" video about this here: https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/10/15/watch-did-ancient-humans-really-throw-spears-at-mammoths-a-berkeley-archaeologist-says-no/
Ethnographic accounts from many eras and peoples suggest that pikes would have been useful to elderly, young, differently-abled and others gaining security against much larger and more powerful predators by using the technology, rather than relying on physical strength.
Pike Use in Megafauna Hunting and Antipredator Defense: Historical Techniques and Paleolithic Research
by Scott Byram, Kent Lightfoot, and Jun Sunseri
Quaternary 2026, 9(4), 56; https://doi.org/10.3390/quat9040056