Posted on 12/14/2007 10:36:28 AM PST by blam
Ancient Toolkit Gives Glimpse of Prehistoric Life
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
Toolkit Contents
Dec. 13, 2007 -- Before the end of the last ice age, a hunter-gatherer left a bag of tools near the wall of a roundhouse residence, where archaeologists have now found the collection 14,000 years later.
The tool set -- one of the most complete and well preserved of its kind -- provides an intriguing glimpse of the daily life of a prehistoric hunter-gatherer.
The contents, as described to Discovery News by Phillip Edwards, a senior lecturer in the Archaeology Program at Melbourne's La Trobe University, show the owner of the bag was well equipped for obtaining meat and edible plants in the wild.
"There was a sickle for harvesting wild wheat or barley, a cluster of flint spearheads, a flint core for making more spearheads, some smooth stones (maybe slingshots), a large stone (maybe for striking flint pieces off the flint core), a cluster of gazelle toe bones which were used to make beads, and part of a second bone tool," he said.
Edwards outlines the finds, attributed to the Natufian culture from a site called Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan, in the latest issue of Antiquity.
He believes the tools were enclosed in a hide or wickerwork bag with a strap that would have been worn over the shoulder. Such bags rarely had compartments, so the owner probably protected valuable items by wrapping them in rolls of bark or leather before placing them at the bottom of the bag.
The sickle, constructed out of two carefully grooved horn pieces, was fitted with color-matched tan and grey bladelets. It would have been a marvel of form and function for its day and is the only tool of its kind ever linked to the Natufian people.
The rest of the items were designed to immobilize and then kill game such as aurochs, red deer, hares, storks, partridges, owls, tortoises and the major source of meat -- gazelles.
"A lone hunter or a group of hunters might wait for gazelles to cross their path while waiting behind a low 'hide' made of twigs and brush," Edwards explained.
"They might have worked on making bone beads to wile away the time. Then a hunter could get off a shot while the animals were off their guard. A first shot might wound, but not kill, and then a hunter or a group of them will track the wounded animal." He added, "We don't know if Natufian hunters had the bow and arrow, or just spears."
The mountain gazelles targeted by the Near Eastern hunters probably weighed between 39 and 55 pounds, so a strong adult "could carry an entire carcass over his shoulders without much trouble."
But the bag's owner wasn't necessarily a man; women are thought to have been in charge of plant gathering. The tools, therefore, either belonged to a woman hunter-gatherer, or work activities were more gender-blind than thought during prehistoric times, Edwards theorized.
Francois Valla, director of the French Research Center in Jerusalem and a noted archaeologist, told Discovery News that similar ancient clusters of tools have been excavated, but this latest one is "the most spectacular of them all."
"The clustering of these items is due to a decision made by some Natufian individual," Valla said. "As such, it is a rare testimony of the behavior of a person 14,000 years ago."
The toolkit's showpiece item, its double-bladed sickle, is now on display in the museum of the Faculty of Archaeology & Anthropology at Jordan's Yarmouk University.
Toolkit Contents
The owner of a 14,000-year-old bag was well equipped for hunting and gathering. The contents, pictured, here, include a sickle for harvesting wild plants, a cluster of flint spearheads, a flint core for making more spearheads, a cluster of gazelle toe bones, and part of a second bone tool.
Another one was found over in Indonesia. They refer to that collection as the “Java tools”.
No Vise Grips? No duct tape?
Truly amazing what those prehistoric Indonesians could do.
JAVA, so easy a caveman could do it.
"I gotta rock"
Who knew Sears went that far back?
For instance, in a nearby women's hut, researchers found a bowl with ancient popcorn kernels and a crude TV remote set to Monday Night Football.
In other words, what a crock (sorry!). To the university set, copulation outside of marriage is a routine idea, but sex is the ultimate scandal.
i cannot image the horror of sitting in a cave with nothing but stone tools and no high speed Internet connection.
But...I thought the earth was only 5,000 years old.
Broken... take it back to Sears for a replacement (test that Lifetime guarantee... hee hee).
Has this idiot ever studied American Plains Indian Culture, it was very specialized.
I’d guess that this is the product of the late tendency toward feminized PC thinking on the part of a lot of scientists.
These ancient men were half-ass wounding dinner and then chasing it for acres and miles AND THEN they were sweeping out the hut when they got home as well?
If I put myself in the place of the ancient men I can tell you I would chase a wounded gazelle just once before I started looking at other methods such as hobbling it on the spot with something and sweeping in for a death blow, or just making damn sure that inside of the expectable range the spearchuckers were deadly.
I wonder why it doesn’t occur to the scientists that it is damn likely that the weapon wielders and spearchuckers were probably pretty badass in the execution of their specialty. Ever seen the results of a 19th century harpooner flinging a shaft?
Today our best athletes are in pro sports but back then they were hunting food. I realize scientists need indications of a thing to speculate but more and more I hear them saying things that sound more PC than intuitive. (And I grew up read Natn'l Geo. religiously)
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Let’s look at this from another angle, shall we?
What if the stones were tied in link with rope of some sort, and used by swinging them around and throwing them at the legs of gazelles. He could then use the sickle, not for gathering wheat, but for slicing the gazelle’s achilles tendons so it couldn’t run away (would also make a quick way to slice the throat without getting too close to those wicked horns. The toes are merit badges, if you will, from previous kills.
Maybe, he was 13 and dad said, “Now’s your time Johammmadi. Go out and bring me back 20 gazelle toes. Then, grasshopper, you will be a man.”
Seems resonable to me... These people were hunter/gatherers, seems like the first part seems to get forgotten alot. There have always been ‘rights of passage’ in the world of hunters turning of age. The answer could truely be anything, but to just say he was a vegetarian based on his toolkit seems alot like a biased opinion. If he was a vegetarian gatherer, maybe that’s why they found his toolkit - He was eaten by something and he had no clue how to defend himself in the real world.
(Yes I DO realize that the word ‘she’ could be substituted for ‘he’ multiple times in the preceeding sentences, and if while reading you felt as if I was being sexist...get over yourself. The world’s not about you...
Don’t sue me, don’t protest in Washington, don’t call your senator and demand new legislation, don’t scream out loud until everyone rolls their eyes behind your back....
It’s real easy, just turn off the computer and go for a walk... ok?)
Forget about it...
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