And that's an error I may go fix. The proper 0-3 is "PreIndustrial" (excepting mayby in the travesty which is Mongoose's efforts.
I misread that SRD as Wiki... I cannot fix the SRD. I can suggest ignoring that part of the SRD and using better lables.
Note that that labeling all of 0-3 as "Primitive" is a Mongoosism, one of many things that make me rather derisively minded toward the game and the company.
I CT, MT, TNE, and on, TL0 is bone and stone ages all together. A definition of primitive being still potentially technological, just not of need at a civilization (= living in permanent settlements full time) supporting level.
"Primitive" in Traveller other than the mongoose edition means no metal tools. It makes no judgement about civilized (living in permanent settlements) vs Nomadic vs migratory (I've heard the term para-civilized and semi-nomadic; it's migrating from one permanent site to another in a stead rotation;
Let's list the materials allowed for MegaTraveller TL0...
Stone, bone, antler, mud/clay, brick, wood, sap, grasses, leaves (esp palm leaves and pine needles, also long cactus spines), shells (bivalves, snails), teeth (esp. sharks and rodents), fire, tar seeps,
Stone tools can be of several kinds...
simple hammer & anvil (been used by monkeys)
Simple single break scrapers - can be done with most rock types. Enables converting grasses, leaves, and bark to fibers. Can be used to sharpen wood into spears (I've done this.)
Flaked tools - shaped core - mostly scrapers/hand-axes
Flaked tools - useful shards - hand knives
Flaked tools - complex shaped shards
Bone tools:
Simple hammers from longbones.
Simple saws from carnasial teeth of predators
Awls, adzes, and scrapers from rodent teeth
With stone tools, you can make bone needles, bone brushes, bone spearpoints, bone knives/spatulas, maces (look up walrus baculum, known in Western Alaska as an Usik, Oosiq, or Oosik. Used as a fishbat and also used to be used for seal harvesting).
Things learned from experimental archaeology:
- It's possible to make bone spear tips and (low quality) scrapers and awls without use of stone. Bone on bone can be used to make the needed fractures.
- It's possible to make mudbrick without stone tools or even bone ones, but the digging is easier with wood, antler, or bone tools than by hand alone.
- Bone knives can be used to harvest bark fibers, and for cutting cooked meats and scraping fat off hides.
- sap can be turned into a usable glue in skulls by putting the sap inside the skull, and using a fire pit to heat it. It can be even converted to a tarry glue that way.
- Tar can be used from natural seeps or mildly processed in the same way as pitch.
- Shark teeth washed ashore or from caught sharks can be used to work wood almost as well as stone flake tools. They also can be used as arrowheads and (when set in grooves in a wood handle) as serrated swords.
- Woven grasses, either whole or stripped down to raw fiber, can be used to make durable goods. Long pine needles can, as well.
- Human hair can be used as a binding material for bone, tooth, stone, wood, pine needle, or even animal fiber.
- certain wild animals have useful hair, as well in addition to the shorter fur. Horses especially, but also certain others. Those that are long enough to tie two bundles of needles together or to lash down a spearhead, reinforced with pitch, tar, or other glues.
- splitting sinew doesn't require a lot of force, just a sharp edge.
- Bone can have a surprisingly sharp edge
- Baskets can be used to cook over a fire. (Thank you to the Hopi for showing this to anthropologists in the 80's or 90's...)
On a late medieval level... say, Spanish America? South American Civilizations were not quite good enough to stop conquistadores 1:1, but enough to hold their own with their 100:1 ratio... until smallpox and other Eurpean diseases killed well more than half. The sharktooth swords and similar obsidian and stone edged swords were in fact pretty effective... but no defense against diseases. The locals were still at a stone age tech level, most without even the wheel as a simple tool... but they were not far behind Eurpeans in standard of living, nor in personal combat capabilities. Bone over rigid leather is almost as good as bronze over leather.
Primitives who are not warring have no need to match the neighbors. They provide a sufficient disincentive for cautious colonialism; only in desperation or xenophobia are they worth dealing with until they become a problem.
the term itself may be laden, but what it represents isn't a huge difference in force multipler; the most important element is the armor, not the weapons. Antler picks are quite capable of denting steel armor sufficiently to do significant injury.