Archaeological studies of early weaponry have relied for decades on ethnographic parallels—whether from ethnohistorical accounts, ethnographic literature, or from objects studied in museum collections. While such accounts and collected objects provided key data in the past, including of morphometrics and functionality, few studies have explored the quality of such data. In this paper, we critically assess a dominant theoretical paradigm, namely the utility of ethnographic collections to assess Pleistocene archaeological material. Our focus is how ethnographic spear morphometrics are used to propose delivery methods of archaeological weapons. We discuss the archaeological significance of early spears, and the role that ethnography has played in interpreting them. We provide new morphometric data of ethnographic wooden spears, which have been used analogically to assess the earliest archaeological hunting tools. We systematically collected data from ethnographic collections of wooden spears in five museums in the UK and Australia including mass, length, diameters and point of balance, alongside any recorded information on provenance and use. Older datasets, as well as the data in this paper, are limited due to collection bias and a lack of detailed museum records. By subjecting the new data to statistical analyses, we find that with a few exceptions morphometrics are not reliable predictors of delivery as thrusting or hand-thrown spears (javelins). Prevalent hypotheses linking variables such as mass, tip design, or maximum diameter with delivery are unsupported by our results. However, the descriptive statistics provided may remain useful as a means of comparative data for archaeological material. We conclude that using simple morphometrics to parse weapon delivery has had a drag effect on forming new and interesting hypotheses about early weapons.

几十年来，早期武器的考古学研究一直依赖于民族志的相似性——无论是民族历史记载、民族志文献，还是博物馆藏品中研究的物品。虽然此类帐户和收集的对象在过去提供了关键数据，包括形态测量和功能，但很少有研究探讨此类数据的质量。在本文中，我们批判性地评估了一个占主导地位的理论范式，即民族志收藏品评估更新世考古材料的效用。我们的重点是如何使用民族志矛形态测量学来提出考古武器的投送方法。我们讨论了早期矛的考古意义，以及民族志在解释它们时所发挥的作用。我们提供了民族志木矛的新形态测量数据，这些数据已被类比地用于评估最早的考古狩猎工具。我们系统地收集了英国和澳大利亚五个博物馆的人种学收藏的木矛数据，包括质量、长度、直径和平衡点，以及有关来源和用途的任何记录信息。由于收藏偏差和缺乏详细的博物馆记录，较旧的数据集以及本文中的数据受到限制。通过对新数据进行统计分析，我们发现，除了少数例外，形态计量学并不是作为刺击或手投矛（标枪）投掷的可靠预测指标。我们的结果不支持将质量、尖端设计或最大直径等变量与输送量联系起来的普遍假设。然而，所提供的描述性统计数据作为考古材料的比较数据的手段仍然有用。我们的结论是，使用简单的形态计量学来解析武器投送对形成有关早期武器的新的有趣的假设产生了拖累效应。