Posted on 06/10/2008 8:30:00 PM PDT by blam
Early Humans Experimented To Get Bow And Arrow Just Right, Findings Suggest
Arrow points (top) were reworked and refined through experimentation, often using dart points (bottom) as a starting place. The difference between the two types of points (size and neck/stem width) can be observed in this photo. (Credit: University of Missouri)
ScienceDaily (Jun. 11, 2008) — In today's fast-paced, technologically advanced world, people often take the innovation of new technology for granted without giving much thought to the trial-and-error experimentation that makes technology useful in everyday life. When the "cutting-edge" technology of the bow and arrow was introduced to the world, it changed the way humans hunted and fought. University of Missouri archaeologists have discovered that early man, on the way to perfecting the performance of this new weapon, engaged in experimental research, producing a great variety of projectile points in the quest for the best, most effective system.
"Technological innovation and change has become a topic that interests people," said R. Lee Lyman, professor and chair of the University of Missouri Department of Anthropology. "When the bow and arrow appeared in North America, roughly 1,500 years ago, it eventually replaced the atlatl (spear thrower) and dart. The introduction of the bow and arrow, a different weapon delivery system, demanded some innovative thinking and technology. In other words, one could not just shoot a dart from a bow. Components like the shaft and arrow point needed to be reinvented."
Because the necessary flight dynamics and mechanics of the arrow wouldn't have been fully understood, the indigenous people at the time would have experimented--trying all sorts of points with different types of shafts, attempting to discover the best combinations. This reinvention process can be seen archaeologically through an increase in the number and variation of projectile points--indicating the transition period between the atlatl and the bow and arrow.
"Everyone is looking for the better mouse trap," Lyman said. "Once a change is made in one variable, it may prompt changes in another variable because the two are mechanically linked. For example, if something gets longer, generally, it will get heavier. This is called a cascade effect. This, in combination with experimentation, resulted in the tremendous variation in projectile points."
Lyman said there is evidence of an initial burst of variation in projectile points at the time bow-and-arrow technology was introduced and that prehistoric artisans experimentally sought arrow points that worked effectively. Following that initial burst, less-effective projectile models were discarded, causing archaeologists to see a reduction in variation.
In the course of this research, Lyman and his collaborators, T.L VanPool and M.J. O'Brien, analyzed the data from more than 1,000 projectile points from three separate geographical locations. Lyman's study, "Variation in North American dart points and arrow points when one, or both are present," will be published in an issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science in fall 2008.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Missouri-Columbia.
You mean they didn’t have OSHA then? ;)
Excellent for richochet shots.
I want to know what the carbon footprint of early humans was. I want to know why they were such a violent culture that they needed weapons in the first place.
Maybe we can get congress to fund a study!
No sh***er here. I know of a fellow who got a Gov grant to study if birds were “right winged” or “left winged”
I don’t believe it either.
I think they have found arrowheads 30,000 years ago in the NW Sahara.
and from at least 12,000 years ago in North America
You must know what a recursive bow is .... Those who invented it are in a new movie “Mongol” Hope it gets yr way
Movie is about Genghis Khan
Interesting enough, but you mean some people actually think humans invented a perfect arrowhead all at once, without having to experiment with the design? Do we really need a scientific study to tell us this stuff?
“Warriors of the Steppes” ping
What’s the Star Trek ( TOS ) episode where Spock and Kirk, I think improvise a bow and arrow weapon, and when they use it, the arrow is barely propelled at all, and flies sideways and looks like they just threw it ?
The “point” being, how WOULD you get the idea for this?
I’ll venture that the atlatl preceded the bow http://www.atlatl.com/
Kinda like “whippin” Apples off the end of sticks ;)
Sort of like the first gun:
BTW, it has occurred to me that this joke, while it acknowledges the primevality of violence, takes the pacifist side with its representation of the 2000 year old man's resort to pleading. I think this is the impression it leaves subjectively as well; that Brooks' character has somehow prevailed over the absurdity of violence. At any rate, it's politically laden.
“And then again on Tuesday morning....”
Michael Palin
Wow! And here I was, just believing that this was how it had worked since every other technology in humanity's repertoire worked this way...
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Thanks Blam. Despite the guffaws on this thread, this is pretty interesting. Sidebar: There are "Old World" Stone Age town sites filled with arrowheads (also fired clay slingstones) from (taa-daa!) battles when those towns were apparently attacked and perhaps sacked -- coinciding with mass burials, and numerous apparently simultaneous individual burials of people killed by arrow wounds (the arrowheads were in the skeleton). Makes one wonder how long ago the Americas would have to have been populated across Beringia for the immigrants to not know the bow. |
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