Posted on 08/22/2024 5:30:35 AM PDT by Red Badger
You could never generate this amount of power yourself.
Mammoth hunts would have been incredibly dangerous.
Image credit: Esteban De Armas/Shutterstock.com
North American hunter-gatherers may have developed an innovative method for killing Ice-Age megafauna like mammoths, according to the authors of a new study. Rather than throwing spears at their prey, members of the iconic Clovis culture might have used “braced shaft weapons”, or pikes, to inflict catastrophic injuries on their victims.
“The key elements of the pike are a sharp tip for entering thick hide or armor and a long, sturdy shaft that could be braced in the ground to receive a charge with deadly force resistance,” write the researchers. In other words, the weapon was secured against the earth in order to harness the force of an onrushing animal, rather than relying on the throwing strength of the hunter.
"The kind of energy that you can generate with the human arm is nothing like the kind of energy generated by a charging animal,” explained study author Jun Sunseri in a statement. “It's an order of magnitude different.”
Inspiration for the study was provided by the mystery surrounding the so-called Clovis points, which have been found across North America and dated to between 13,050 and 12,650 years ago. Recognizable for their razor-sharp edges and fluted indentations, the spearheads are regularly retrieved from within the skeletons of mammoths and other Ice Age giants, although scholars are yet to agree over how they were used during hunts.
Replica Clovis points, showing their distinctive shape. Image credit: courtesy of Scott Byram
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Wondering if Clovis points might have been set on pikes, the study authors began by reviewing references to this type of weapon in the historical and ethnographic literature. As it turns out, the ancient Greek historian Xenophon reports the use of pikes for hunting large boar, while similar weapons were also employed against “Indian and African war elephants.”
“Pikes were used for well over two millennia to stop charging warhorses in battle,” write the researchers.
To discover how effective such weapons may have been for hunting large prey, the study authors employed a knapping expert to recreate a set of Clovis points, which they then hafted onto pikes. In a series of experiments, the researchers learned that the system functioned somewhat like a hollow-point bullet as the blade became detached from its shaft after penetrating an animal’s hide, ultimately causing “more massive injury than a thrust or launched spear can produce.”
High-speed camera images of force-test of Clovis-pointed spear
High-speed photo sequence during a test, showing how the stone point recedes into and splinters the pike shaft. Image credit: courtesy of Scott Byram
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The fact that the point tends to detach when used on a pike may also explain why Clovis points are often discovered inside mammoth skeletons that show no sign of having been butchered by humans. According to the researchers, some animals may have survived these attacks, yet would have been left with a blade lodged in their body for the rest of their lives.
Taken together, these various findings suggest that the Clovis people may well have used pikes rather than spears when hunting large animals. "This ancient Native American design was an amazing innovation in hunting strategies," says study author Scott Byram.
To develop their theory, the researchers are now planning to build a replica mammoth for use in further experiments with lithic pikes.
The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.
The first person to try this must have been particularly fearless, or particularly hungry. Alternatively, they started with something smaller than a mammoth, and worked their way up.
It appears that you are the go-to for topical Gary Larsen cartoons. It was the best part of the comics section, every day.
Larson, DOH!
Why didn’t they domesticate the mammoths instead of hunting them to extinction, if they actually did, which I doubt.
The mega fauna of the Interglacial periods were all killed off at the same time by some natural catastrophe..............
Being a ‘piker’ was not for the weak of spirit.
Or he was the victim of the proverbial "I triple dog dare you".
Oddly enough, the Clovis people dissapeard right along with the Mega fauna they supposedly wiped out.
My guess is a large iron meteorite hit northern Canada and killed off the people and animals. all the way down to teh Arizona Mexico area.................................
Which later became “Here, hold my beer for me.”
Olé!
Reprints are online https://www.thefarside.com/
Hmm--Kinda like.....a flood.
Very likely.
Many great deeds are owed to alcohol fortified courage (or stupidity).
These “scientists” sure seem to think early man was an idiot, and not the clever, thinking, learning “killing machine” he truly was/is. Another article in today’s FR feed talks about sophisticated multi-step processing of tree resin from ? 50-55,000 years ago. Give me a break! Early hunters by trial and error, observation, and serendipity, knew better than to just slide a slit piece of wood over the end of the spear point and tie it in place with a few loops of thick, easy-to-break cord. I guarantee you that early armorers knew well how to embed the points deeply in a shaft with good multipoint reinforcement and using resins and fire and many layers of thin strong cord further strengthened with resin. Fall traps (pits lightly covered over and with sharp pointed short pikes embedded in the ground at the bottom of the pit) and pikes braced against the ground or boulders or hillsides, while other hunters drive the prey to or across the ambushes, would have been well known or easily conceived. And I wonder if this article references at all the levered throwing stick/spear adaptation long used by native americans and others, the atlatl, estimated to have been used at least 17,000 years ago. The bigger the diameter of the launcher, the thicker the spear can be used. It doesn’t need much distance with that power and accuracy for several hunters to bring down a large animal. Hunters and military historians could really add to such a study.
Hold my beer and watch this...
5.56mm
Not to mention his bait.
“The fact that the point tends to detach when used on a pike may also explain why Clovis points are often discovered inside mammoth skeletons that show no sign of having been butchered by humans. According to the researchers, some animals may have survived these attacks, yet would have been left with a blade lodged in their body for the rest of their lives.”
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