The 13,900-Year-Old Mastodon Rib Found With A Bone Point Still Inside — And The CT Scan That Put Hunters Before Clovis

The researchers went further than digital reconstruction alone.

They also produced physical 3D prints of the reconstructed point — tangible objects that researchers and observers could hold and examine in three dimensions.

The 3D prints made visible, in a way that even excellent CT visualizations cannot fully convey, the reality of what had been reconstructed: a weapon tip, recognizable as a weapon tip, shaped by deliberate human intention from mastodon bone, that had struck another mastodon’s rib and broken off inside the bone approximately 13,900 years ago.

The morphological analysis of the reconstructed point confirmed its identification as a projectile tip.