While the stone points from the Anzick burial have received the most attention — being the most visually distinctive and most clearly associated with the Clovis technological tradition — the bone tools in the assemblage deserve specific consideration because they are among the less well-understood elements of the burial and because they connect the Anzick site to a broader pattern of bone tool use in Clovis contexts.

The Anzick bone tools include what appear to be cylindrical rods shaped from the long bones of large animals.

These objects — which have been given various names in the literature, including “bone rods,” “shaft smoothers,” and “foreshafts” — appear at several other Clovis sites, making them a recognizable element of the Clovis toolkit rather than something unique to Anzick.

Their function, however, remains debated.

The “foreshaft” interpretation holds that these bone rods were used as intermediate sections between the stone projectile point and the main wooden shaft of a hunting weapon.