Projectile Point Morphology: A Note on the Golden Section
J. Walter Lynch, Richard J. Hathaway
Abstract
There is evidence in the literature that the golden section proportion has aesthetic appeal. An interesting question concerns whether the appeal is due simply to culturally learned preference, or whether it is somehow a consequence of the human vision and nervous systems. A statistical analysis of the dimensions of 450 projectile points suggests that the golden section may have had an aesthetic significance to at least some of the inhabitants of what is now Georgia during the Middle to Late Archaic periods. This occurrence of a possible golden section preference in a very different cultural setting provides some evidence that humans are predisposed to it in matters of aesthetics.
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