Projectile point neck-widths are used to estimate the age of specimens from surface assemblages in southern Idaho. Like other attribute-based dating techniques, it is easier to replicate and can be accomplished with more fragmentary artifacts than more typological-based approaches. Estimating the age in years allows us to examine the past in a more continuous way that avoids problems arising from periodization and discrepancies between archaeologists in their definition of sequences. The availability and physical characteristics of the raw material from which the projectile points were manufactured, along with constraints in scheduling other subsistence resources, may have contributed to the long-term empirical trend toward narrower neck-widths over time. This trend transcends the change in projectile technologies from the earlier atlatl thrown darts to later bow propelled arrows. Both technologies coexisted for at least a millennium in southern Idaho.
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