Marta, Liviu (szerk.): Satu Mare. Studii şi comunicări. Seria arheologie 29/1. (2013)
Laura Dietrich: Projectile weapons of the Late Bronze Age int he Easter Europe. The case of the Noua-Sabatinovka-Coslogeni cultural complex
Laura Dietrich TCSA in mm2 was chosen as a differentiating parameter; TSCP requires very detailed measurements62, which cannot be taken from drawings. However, the results presented here can serve as guidelines until a more accurate dataset can be produced based on a large number of original finds63. Parallelly a classic examination of the combinations between lengths and widths has been conducted. Only the maximal length, not the length of the blade was used, because with some types the leaf and the shaft cannot be clearly separated64. Consequently, the calculation of the length parameter in this way does not describe the differences in the penetration depth, but a combined value for penetration depth and shafting. Nevertheless, this issue does not affect the TCSA which does not include length. Fig. 4: Metrical analysis of length and width of the projectile points. Fig. 4 shows the results of the comparison between length (horizontal axis) and width (vertical axis). Clearly three clusters can be distinguished: a large one which includes all smaller projectile points of bone, stone and bronze, a smaller one which includes the smaller spears of the control group65 and another one with longer and wider spears. The first group forms a big nucleus but has also some outliers made up of points of different types. For example, the small outlier group above the core cluster is formed of projectile points with longer shafts (of types 4B, 5E, 5C, with well delimited shafts and 2A, with not well-delimited shafts). This could indicate a different function, but reflects possibly just different methods of shafting. Interesting is also a second outlier group (right of the core cluster) of projectile points with wider blades (types 3D, 4C, 4G and 41). Points of these types appear also in the core cluster, which indicates that the same shapes could have had different functions. This image is cleared up by analysing the TCSA distribution (fig. 5). Five distinct groups can be observed. A first cluster includes for the most part projectile points with TCSA values under 40 mm2, most of them though have up to 20 mm2. They belong to the types 1 and 2 and can be slim or wider but are generally very thin which results in a low TCSA value. The second cluster comprises the types 3, 4 and 5 A and B, which are generally wider and thicker. Most TCSA values of this group are between 20 and 40 mm2. A third cluster is represented by narrow points with TCSA values between 40 and 60 mm2. A fourth cluster is made up of by spears with TCSA values between 90 and 200 mm2 and a fifth has values over 200 mm2. Based on the metric values provided by Thomas66 and Shott67, Bretke et al.68 have calculated a range of values between 13-53 mm2 for arrows and 40-76 mm2 for dart points. The analysed African and American specimens are made of stone and have specific forms. Of course, these data sets do not represent good analogies for Bronze Age projectile points, as the geographical and chronological variability is too 62 see Sisk/Shea 2011,3, fig. 1. “This is intended in the new project. “This would be possible though through a microscope examination, “designated as “throwing spears” by Dergacev 2002, 132. “Thomas 1978. 67 Shott 1997. 68 Bretke et al. 2006. 188
