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The transition from the atlatl to the bow and arrow in North America has not been so "sudden" as once proposed by Utilitarian Determinism. The two weapons coexisted for a long time as carriers of different social needs or "habitus", as in Bourdieu. These results are consistent with archaeological finds, a classification following different and more precise criteria of dart and arrow points, a greater interaction between archeology, ethnography and anthropology. Moreover, in some complex societies such as the Mesoamerican ones the atlatl as a weapon remained dominant until the Conquest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]