The nuances of stone tools–what they look like and where they’re found—speak volumes about the first Americans, says University of Northern Iowa archeologist Michael Shott. Yet tools, he says, “were useful to the Paleoindians but they didn’t organize their life around them as we do our analysis.”

Their world was made up of other materials too. The stone points were part of larger tools that included wood, fiber, sinew, and bone. Stone was a relatively small part of the material culture.

“We focus on stone because that’s what’s left,” says Shott. “The Paleoindians would probably laugh themselves silly to see the time and effort we spend hunched over our work tables measuring their projectile points.”