The bone point that penetrated the mastodon’s rib at the Manis site was, from the perspective of the person who used it, a failure.

The tip broke.

The weapon was damaged in a way that required either repair or replacement.

Whether the mastodon was killed in the same encounter or escaped wounded — we do not know.

Whether the hunter recovered and reused the hafted portion of the weapon, or abandoned it at the scene — we do not know.

From the perspective of the mastodon, the broken tip was the beginning of a wound that would either contribute to its death or would be carried in its body for the remainder of its life, a reminder of a violent encounter encoded in its skeleton.

From the perspective of the field of American archaeology, that broken tip has become one of the most important pieces of physical evidence for the pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas — a testimony to the reality and the specificity of human presence in the late Pleistocene Pacific Northwest that no amount of indirect evidence could fully substitute for.