When Did Humans Begin Hurling Spears?

Science Now ^ | Friday, May 17, 2013 | Heather Pringle

[SunkenCiv]

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

[SunkenCiv]

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[knarf]

I remember reading about this ... it was immediately following the first hurled ashtray.

[pepsionice]

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.

[JRandomFreeper]

Chimps have at least 10 different vocalizations associated with different emotions/events. I'll bet our ancestors were a little more sophisticated than that.

/johnny

[muawiyah]

Even quacking ducks have at least a dozen words, and those in the wild probably have more than 20. Dogs have several dozen.

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 ~

[beebuster2000]

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.

[Roccus]

When Did Humans Begin Hurling Spears?

As soon as he had two.

[JRandomFreeper]

Wednesday: invent atlatl and throw spear further than Ogg. ;)

/johnny

[bunkerhill7]

Q. When did humans begin hurling spears?

Ans. 1970

Spearchucker Jones

[knarf]

"Then they all go out and start hunting big-game, and take on some pretty tough creatures."

Yeah, n'they started globull warming by chasing all them dino-farts out ... while in pursuit.

[beebuster2000]

thursday: invent shield so Ogg spear throw is negated. steal Oggs woman after Ogg dies.

[Jack Hydrazine]

And what happened on Friday?

[JRandomFreeper]

Friday: Knock off hunting early and invent beer. Party.

/johnny

[Jack Hydrazine]

And I bet on Saturday it was all about getting over the hangover, right?

[JRandomFreeper]

Does the human condition ever really change? We just get better tools. ;)

/johnny

[Jack Hydrazine]

You are quite correct!

[bgill]

Saturday, he woke up to his wife using the spear on him after finding him in bed with Ogg’s ex.

[null and void]

Chimps have at least 10 different vocalizations associated with different emotions/events. I'll bet our ancestors were a little more sophisticated than that.

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...

[beebuster2000]

Saturday, he woke up to his wife using the spear on him after finding him in bed with Ogg’s ex.

LOL