They encountered animals that they had not hunted before, in landscapes they had not inhabited before, using materials that may or may not have been exactly what they were accustomed to.

In the Pacific Northwest, where the specific raw materials for stone tools varied by location and may not always have included the fine-grained rocks best suited for Clovis-style flaking, making weapon tips from available bone — including the abundant cortical bone available from large animals like mastodons — was a rational technological response.

The Manis point is evidence that this response was made, at least in one specific case, approximately 13,900 years ago on the Olympic Peninsula.

Whether it represents an isolated instance of improvisation or part of a broader tradition of bone weapon use among the early Pacific Northwest peoples is a question that only future discoveries can address.