Controlled experiments support the role of function in the evolution of the North American copper tool repertoire

Archaeologists have attributed the decline of North American utilitarian copper tools to changes in demography and social complexity during the Archaic to Woodland transition, ca. 3000 B.P. However, not all utilitarian copper tools disappeared: the copper awl persisted. Given that the copper tool types that disappeared, such as projectile points and knives, have been experimentally shown to be functionally inferior to their non-copper...