The investigation of Neandertal projectile technology through controlled ballistic experimentes aimed at understanding impact fractures. Acronym: NeProTECH

在过去的十年里，支持尼安德特人狩猎的证据越来越多。动物群数据的同时，Schöningen长矛的发现(Thieme 1997)，嵌在Umm-el-Tlel野生驴脊椎中的石点(Boeda等人。旧石器时代中期，越来越多的证据表明，使用射弹武器狩猎可能是相当古老的。尽管在识别与石弹使用相关的骨折和磨损模式方面做了大量工作，但没有明确的标准来进行识别。我们认为这是因为之前的研究没有对混杂因素进行足够的控制，我们提出了一个严格的实验方案，这应该使我们能够创建一个冲击性骨折的参考集合。我们建议测试速度/力和撞击角度对考古Lvallois点的完全相同的玻璃副本中的断裂模式的影响(控制形状和原材料的断裂特性)。这些炮弹将发射到由合成材料(弹道明胶和合成沙莫伊斯)和骨骼组成的均匀目标。这些炮弹将首先在实验室环境下从高精度弹道枪上发射，在第二个实验中，它们将被安装在矛杆上，并使用校准的弩向相同的目标射击。这些观点将以照片的形式记录下来，并在宏观和微观上进行分析，结果将发表在几个同行评议的期刊上。骨折模式数据库将在一个专门的网站上公布。

In the last ten years, the body of evidence in favor of Neandertal hunting has grown. The concurrence of the faunal data, the discovery of the Schöningen spears (Thieme 1997), that of a stone point embedded in a wild ass vertebra at Umm-el-Tlel (Boeda et al. 1999), and the ever-increasing evidence for hafting in the Middle Paleolithic suggests that hunting with projectile weapons is probably quite ancient. Despite much work on identifying fracture and wear patterns associated with stone projectile use, no unambiguous criteria for carrying out the Identifications exist. We argue that this is because previous studies have not sufficiently controlled for confounding factors, and we propose a rigorous experimental program which should enable us to create a reference collection of impact fractures. We propose to test the effect of speed/force and angle of impact on fracture patterns in identical glass copies of an archaeological Levallois point (controlling for shape and raw material fracture properties). The projectiles will be shot at homogeneous targets made of synthetic materials (ballistic gelatine and synthetic chamois) and bone. The projectiles will be first launched from a highprecision ballistic gun in a laboratory setting, and, in a second experiment, they will be attached to spear shafts and shot at the same targets using a calibrated crossbow. The points will be photographically documented and analyzed both macro and microscopically and the results published in several peer-reviewed journals. The database of fracture patterns will be made public on a dedicated website.