Cloth-Clad Clovis

[Minimalist]

Traps, snares, nets.... I suspect our ancient ancestors made use of lots of survival techniques for which we are not going to find tangible evidence.

I imagine also that they ate anything they could find...animal or vegetable.

[E.P. Grondine]

Traps, snares, nets.... I suspect our ancient ancestors made use of lots of survival techniques for which we are not going to find tangible evidence.

Agree.

I imagine also that they ate anything they could find...animal or vegetable.

Disagree. They would find the best tasting foods around and eat them, and only eat the less desirable foods when necessary.

But then its all a matter of taste...

[Minimalist]

That's how I feel about sushi....and tacos.

[uniface]

until the bow was powerful enough to bring down such animals at a distance it would seem that large animals and spears were the only option. I think!

The Aussie Blackfellows used atlatls to harvest kangaroos for fifty umpteen thousand years. Really. Today, boar hunting with atlatls stopped being news years ago.

[wxsby]

[quoteThat's how I feel about sushi....and tacos.][/quote]

I love sushi and tacos. The best thing in the world is a sushi taco!

[uniface]

Size is misunderstood. Small points penetrate deeper but have to be thrown from closer (loss of velocity from inertia is more rapid with lighter projectiles).

The idea of people surrounding a mammoth and jabbing it with spears is beyond even absurdity.

[wxsby]

I guess it wouldn't look like anything, because it would have disintegrated. Except if it was fossilized. If we can find and ID fossilized flora and fauna, why not bows and arrows?

Because there were jungles of flora and fauna... and just a few bows, atlatls and arrows. I'd still like to 'shoot' an atlatl. JFS&G...

[Sam Salmon]

[ so until the bow was powerful enough to bring down such animals at a distance it would seem that large animals and spears were the only option. I think!

Pit traps and some decent sized rocks would do the trick, as would snares, nets and good old directed stampedes a-la Head Smashed In

[Minimalist]

I guess it wouldn't look like anything, because it would have disintegrated. Except if it was fossilized. If we can find and ID fossilized flora and fauna, why not bows and arrows?

Because there were jungles of flora and fauna... and just a few bows, atlatls and arrows. I'd still like to 'shoot' an atlatl. JFS&G...

"Shooting" one looks easy. Hitting a target seems far more problematical.

[uniface]

I'd still like to 'shoot' an atlatl. JFS&G...

http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/forums/24

[Digit]

I hate to say this but I think everybody has missed my point, probably I didn't make myself clear.
I agree with pretty much all that has been said, but I was talking about development, not the end of the show.
Sometime before man ended up as a walking arsenal there was a point when his only weapon was probably a well aimed rock! What happened next?
Logically a pointed stick, probably a digging stick hurled in desperation/danger, prior to that, as I suggested, his meat diet must have consisted of that which he could scavenge or catch with his bare hands.
If cordage came next then nets and snares would have enabled smallish animals to be caught.
Digging a pit trap for an Auroch seems like a hell of a lot of work!
Stabbing a Mammoth seems to be in fact what did happen, but that does not mean within hand shaking distance.
Trying to kill a Hare by throwing a spear at it is likely, IMO, to result in starvation! A Mammoth would be a somewhat easier target, and as I pointed out, such points have been found in association with Mammoth bones.
Once we have a pointed stick some genius attached a bone, flint ,glass point to the end. This shows planning and development as just finding a method of fixing the point securely probably took some time.
The difference in penetrating power of light and heavy spears, kinectic energy, has been pointed out, this again was probably ascertained by trial and error.
If you use a heavy spear, then a large point is also necessary to make a large enough hole for the shaft to 'follow through', otherwise penetration is limited.
Logic again insists that the spear preceeded the spear thrower, when increased velocity, increased kinetic energy, may well have made heavy spears redundent.
Does anyone see any fault with my logic here?

Roy.

[uniface]

If you use a heavy spear, then a large point is also necessary to make a large enough hole for the shaft to 'follow through', otherwise penetration is limited.

In practice, it's the reverse that's the case. Given equal propulsive force, a (boat-shaped) modern bullet carries further, hits harder and penetrates deeper than an 18th-century round ball because of its greater cross-sectional density.

Same with atlatl darts. As with the Aussie examples, the weight of a heavier shaft transmits force enough that what's wanted on the business end is a trade off. A narrow point achieves optimum penetration, while a wider one is better for cutting more veins and arteries, which is what it's ultimately about. Put it through the lungs, and death from haemmoraging is certain. Too wide, and the resistance the greater surface area creates hinders penetration. The heart shot (when you're good enough to get it) is optimum (quickest) but, in the vital target area, they all pretty much work.

A lot of confusion is engendered by many of what are called spear points having been hafted knives.

The logical flaw, in my humble, is in trying to derive even the mesolithic from the conjectural upright monkey. Like whiskey from mash -- without some sort of purposeful intervention, it ain't gonna happen.

[E.P. Grondine]

until the bow was powerful enough to bring down such animals at a distance it would seem that large animals and spears were the only option. I think!

The Aussie Blackfellows used atlatls to harvest kangaroos for fifty umpteen thousand years. Really. Today, boar hunting with atlatls stopped being news years ago.

Thanks muchly for that info. That gives us a firm date for atlatl use. While it may have been earlier, we can demonstrate that they were in use ca. 50,000 BCE.

[E.P. Grondine]

Sometime before man ended up as a walking arsenal there was a point when his only weapon was probably a well aimed rock! What happened next?
Logically a pointed stick, probably a digging stick hurled in desperation/danger, prior to that, as I suggested, his meat diet must have consisted of that which he could scavenge or catch with his bare hands.

Hi Roy -

Actually, in primates we see pointed stick and rock use simultaneously.

The next step was discovering that two rocks struck against each other produced a sharp rock.
The step after that was that the sharp rocks could be put on the end of the pointed sticks.

For some reason we're leaving out bone tips and other bone tools in this discussion, and the hafting must have come from animal glue and sinews.

If cordage came next then nets and snares would have enabled smallish animals to be caught.
Digging a pit trap for an Auroch seems like a hell of a lot of work!
Stabbing a Mammoth seems to be in fact what did happen, but that does not mean within hand shaking distance.

Large animals were killed while wallowing in mud wallers (wallows) near salt licks.
Pit traps were developed and dug along migration paths, and made sense if reused annually during annual migrations.

Trying to kill a Hare by throwing a spear at it is likely, IMO, to result in starvation!

That's why you have rocks. Pretty good when used against small game, and if you get 40 or so of the earliest homonids together with rocks and sharp sticks, probably sufficient to discourage large cats.

For some reason you are not considering turtles as a food source.

[E.P. Grondine]

Here is one interpretation:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... s%3Disch:1

Similar to what I found before... but I have doubts about the copper points as they didn't catch on enough to become the preferred point... although vastly superior technology. As I have my doubts about the Indians mining and smelting any metals... just not enough evidence.

Thanks for the link. I had thought that bow and arrow technologies had come north from coastal South America with the Toltec, after having been gained there from contacts from Asia.

As you can see in my book, the Andaste did mine Michigan copper, and carried it to the Atlantic Ocean. Where the Andaste may have got bow and arrow technology from is one of those questions. There are some Atlantic coastal sites that I would really like to look at. (Some of the known sites along the route are not protected, so forgive me for not saying more.)

Why this bow and arrow technology did not spread from them is another of those questions.