Complex research on various barbed points from early Mesolithic sites in the Volga-Oka interfluve showed that
they were the heads of different categories of hunting weapons, mostly projectiles. Analyses of their shape, size
and use-wear traces made it possible to single out arrowheads, javelin or leister points, throwing and thrusting
spearheads and harpoons. The earliest of them emerge in the first half of the Preboreal period, but the full flourishing
of various categories of barbed weapons is observed during the late Preboreal to early Boreal periods
and later. Some types and variants are numerous and have a long history, while others are represented only
by single finds. The former represent more or less standard mass products, while the latter can be treated as
experimental artefacts which played no significant role. Together with other types of bone and antler hunting
weapons barbed projectile points played an important role in subsistence strategies of the Early Mesolithic population
of the Volga-Oka interfluve and their adaptation to the forest environment during the early Holocene.
Zhilin, M.G.: Early Mesolithic barbed bone points in the Volga-Oka interfluve, in: Gross et al. (edd.), Working at The Sharp End at Hohen Viecheln, Untersuchungen und Materialien zur Steinzeit in Schleswig-Holstein und im Ostseeraum, Vol. 10, pp. 319–339, DOI: 10.23797/9783529018619-13.