this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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Archaeology

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Archaeology or archeology[a] is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes.

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To kill mammoths in the Ice Age, people used planted pikes, not throwing spears, researchers say (phys.org)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

How did early humans use sharpened rocks to bring down megafauna 13,000 years ago? Did they throw spears tipped with carefully crafted, razor-sharp rocks called Clovis points? Did they surround and jab mammoths and mastodons? Or did they scavenge wounded animals, using Clovis points as a versatile tool to harvest meat and bones for food and supplies?

UC Berkeley archaeologists say the answer might be none of the above.

Instead, researchers say humans may have braced the butt of their pointed spears against the ground and angled the weapon upward in a way that would impale a charging animal. The force would have driven the spear deeper into the predator's body, unleashing a more damaging blow than even the strongest prehistoric hunters would have been capable of on their own.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm not an archeologist in any way, but yeah what you said makes way more sense than what the article describes. It would be nearly suicide to wait for a big animal to charge at you and then try to pike them with a spear. There are so many safer and equally efficient ways to use a spear to kill an animal.

Just off the top of my head i can imagine lots of ways to do it. Like use 10 foot spears and herd the animal into a trench, then a bunch of guys can safely stab it from above. Or herd it into an enclosed area and then drop a bunch of heavy logs into the exit so the animal is trapped, then throw spears at it from a safe area. Etc

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

You would need a lot of time and energy to build a trench, mammoths may not stay in the area.

I am under the impression you don't stay with the spear and its spike zone serving a similar purpose as a trench. Maybe they realized mammoths will try to ram those if you provoke em from behind the spikes zone.

Especially in a snowy area i can see it doable to quickly plant some spikes walls in the snow to help wall in an animal. Though it may be just bias that i assume mammoth = snow area

Doesn’t exclude using other techniques combined with that. I am pretty sure that trenches with spikes did exist some time in history