But it also carried symbolic weight — deer appear in the rock art of the Texas Archaic as significant figures, and the relationship between human hunters and deer was understood in ways that extended beyond simple predator and prey.

Stone artifacts — projectile points, knives, scrapers — appear in burial contexts as well.

The specific types of projectile points found in burials can provide chronological information, because the forms of these tools changed over time in ways that archaeologists have documented and dated.

But they also speak to the role of hunting in the identity of the deceased, and possibly to the role of certain types of tools as objects of social significance — weapons that carried prestige or meaning beyond their functional utility.

What Ancient Texas Tells The Modern World