Posted on 05/25/2013 6:23:35 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists have long debated when early humans began hurling stone-tipped spears and darts at large prey. By throwing a spear, instead of thrusting it, humans could hunt buffalo and other dangerous game from a safe distance, with less risk of a goring or mauling. But direct evidence of this hunting technique in early sites has been lacking. A new study of impact marks on the bones of ancient prey shows that such sophisticated killing techniques go back at least 90,000 years ago in Africa and offers a new method of determining how prehistoric hunters made their kills.
Other researchers have used indirect methods to study the use of projectiles, such as analyzing impact fractures on ancient stone points or identifying traces left by hafting on the points. Such evidence suggests that early humans created throwing spears as early as 500,000 years ago in Africa. But that kind of evidence leaves room for doubt and is frequently disputed.
Archaeologist Corey O'Driscoll of South East Archaeology in Canberra became interested in the traces left by hurled spears after reading studies of the wounds that medieval weapons inflicted on humans. In preliminary work, European archaeologists had fired reproductions of Upper Paleolithic points made of antler at the carcasses of oxen and deer, then studied the marks that they left on the bones. But many archaeologists remained unconvinced by the findings, seeing little clear difference between projectile marks and cut marks from butchering.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sciencemag.org ...
Ancient firepower. An Australian archaeologist fired replicas of Middle Stone Age projectiles with a crossbow (left) at animal carcasses. Projectile impact marks on the bone (below left) were distinctive from cut marks (below right). Credit: Corey O'Driscoll
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I remember reading about this ... it was immediately following the first hurled ashtray.
You have to wonder about this first guy. He has a word vocabulary of probagbly twelve words, and has looking at this fancy rock for several days. Then he figures out how to tie the rock onto the spear. A day later, he’s made one for each of the ten guys in the village. Then they all go out and start hunting big-game, and take on some pretty tough creatures.
/johnny
Early man had a full vocabulary sufficient to his environment ~ and that probably amounted to hundreds of individual words and thousands of combinations.
gelada baboons are the current animal d'jour since they may well have a very highly developed vocalization system ~ fun reading BTW.
Now, back to spear chucking ~
agenda for the week:
monday: invent spear for thrusting
tuesday: realize that if you just thrust a little harder you can let go and it will still travel to the target.
sounds to me like monday is the key day, and tuesdays discovery is pretty inevitable.
As soon as he had two.
/johnny
Ans. 1970
Spearchucker Jones
Yeah, n'they started globull warming by chasing all them dino-farts out ... while in pursuit.
thursday: invent shield so Ogg spear throw is negated. steal Oggs woman after Ogg dies.
And what happened on Friday?
/johnny
And I bet on Saturday it was all about getting over the hangover, right?
/johnny
You are quite correct!
Saturday, he woke up to his wife using the spear on him after finding him in bed with Ogg’s ex.
Having listened to what passes for music and culture in some modern areas, I'm not totally sure we have all that many more today...
LOL
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