Posted on 08/18/2022 7:17:04 AM PDT by Red Badger
Indigenous Australian Boomerang. (Gift of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1981)
A wooden boomerang might not possess the many arms of a Swiss army knife, but the uses of this ingenious tool by Australia's First Nations peoples are manifold.
This wooden, elbow-shaped instrument is popularly known around the world as an aerodynamic throwing stick. But depending on how the tool is made, it can also be used as a battle club, a digging stick, a hammer, a fire starter, a toy, a musical instrument – and even, it turns out, a sharpener of bone and stone tools.
In a new study, researchers in Australia have shown that hardwood boomerangs are tough enough to be used even for flint-, bone- and stone-knapping.
VIDEO AT LINK................
One of the authors is a Birrunburra / Bundjalung / Yugambeh / Yuggera / Turrbal man, and he contributed two of the four hardwood boomerangs used in the experiments.
Members of the Milan Dhiiyaan mob also shared their Traditional knowledge and some bubarra / garrbaa / biyarr (boomerangs) with the authors.
When expert knappers were given these hardwood boomerangs to use, they were able to flake away the edges of bone instruments. This left scratches on the wooden tool that closely match those seen on older boomerang artifacts held in museums.
Researchers previously suspected these markings were the product of wood tapping against stone or bone, and the new experiments show that is very much a possibility.
"In our article, we put together traditional knowledge and experimental archaeology to investigate a forgotten use of boomerangs: modifying the edges of stone tools," says archaeologist Eva Francesca Martellotta from Griffith University in Australia.
"Traditionally handcrafted experimental replicas of boomerangs proved very functional to shape stone tools. Our results are the first scientific proof of the multipurpose nature of these iconic objects."
"While our results for the first time scientifically quantify the multipurpose nature of daily tools like boomerangs, this is something that Aboriginal people have known from a very long time," Martellotta adds. 
Sequence of boomerang retouching efforts
Retouching using boomerangs. (Martellota et al., PLOS ONE, 2022)
The findings support the hypothesis that Australia's First Nations peoples regularly used hardwood boomerangs for retouching purposes.
Since the European invasion in the late 1700s, however, the multipurpose nature of the boomerang has received little attention from archaeologists or ethnographic researchers.
Earlier this year, some of the same researchers published a systematic review of the scientific literature on boomerangs. Their analysis revealed that most previous studies have focused only on the aerodynamic properties of returning boomerangs, and little else.
Few other functions of the boomerang have been considered, despite reports of many different uses. Returning boomerangs may have become the most famous of the lot, but not all boomerangs are designed to fly back. Some are designed to fly straight and true.
In the video below, a Marrawarra / Barkindji man by the name of Brendan Mitchell walks through the numerous ways that boomerangs are designed and used today. As he cheekily demonstrates, some make for great back scratchers.
VIDEO AT LINK................
While it might seem pointless to use wood against rock, this might have been humanity's first step in the history of flint- and stone-knapping.
The markings found on ancient boomerangs in Australia closely resemble bone retouchers from the early phase of the Stone Age in Europe. Neanderthals even used this technique as far back as 500,000 years ago.
Some of these Paleolithic bone retouchers have caught and held micro flakes of flint that still remain stuck in the fossilized wood to this day.
In the current study, some hardwood boomerangs showed the same tiny chips.
Across great distances and great lengths of time, humans have been using hard wooden objects to reshape their tools.
The Australian boomerang could very well belong in that arsenal.
The study was published in PLOS ONE.
Ping!............................
Why just the other day I watched an Australian man creatively use a boomerang to take a mirror off a car and break open a window to get access to the doctor that vaxxed his kid.
So “traditional” is capitalized now?
Had one as a kid/teenager and got pretty good with it. (Setting aside accidentally breaking my Dad’s truck windshield.)
should be able to buy one at Cabelas
I had a boomerang as a kid...................
In the Leftist worldview it is always Europeans doing the invading. No other society has ever invaded anyone anywhere in the Left worldview.
I watched boomerang as a kid!
What’s the idea of putting coffee in my coffee ☕ cup?!!
The Aboriginies are the civilized ones!
There are at least two types of Australian boomerangs. One, a heavier version, is not designed to return. It simply goes out a fair distance and strikes hard whatever it’s aimed at. The other type returns. Years ago, some of us would use a router and make 2” oblong slots in either end of a returning boomerang. Then, we’d tape miniature chemical light sticks in the slots and throw the boomerang at night. The result was amazing.
LOL. Good is a matter of perspective. If your dad was sitting in his truck good wasn’t the first word to come to mind.
Don't see kids playing with them today. I guess they went the way of BB guns, slingshots and whittling knives. Helicopter parents find them too dangerous.
My bedroom window had decorative wood shutters on either side (outside). At age 7, I had a neat 4" fixed blade knife from the San Diego Zoo. I became proficient at throwing it from 15 ft and sticking tip neatly in the wood. It was fun until it struck the glass window. It went into the glass stopping with the hilt. Oops.
All the kids had boomerangs when I was growing up. It was actually a great skill to have. With a little practice and a little wind, you could have it come right back to you every time.
—
Boomerangs were frisbees before frisbees were frisbees.
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2825076
You have to be really careful around boomerangs. They go out and then come back in from behind or the side. It is very easy to loose track of one, especially if there are several in the air. I caught a boomerang in my teeth once and was lucky I didn’t loose anything.
My boomerang won’t come back!
My boomerang won’t come back!
I waved the thing all over the place,
Practiced till I was blue in the face.
I’m a big disgrace to the Aborigine race!
My boomerang won’t come back!
I can ride a kangaroo,
Make kinkijou stew,
But I’m a big disgrace to the Aborigine race,
My boomerang won’t come back!
So did I. I followed the instructions on how to throw it, threw it out over the neighbor’s cornfield and it never did com back.
One throw- gone.
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