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Stone tipped spears predate humans by 85,000


Myles

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So animals used to be a lot smarter than us and were using stone tipped spears to slaughter each other. :tu:

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Uh...pre-humans (in this case Heidelberg man) made the stone tipped spears. Animals tend to rip each other apart with teeth and claws!

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Did not know that the Heidelberg man was not human... but then again the piece is according to the editorial quality of Fox News.

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Did not know that the Heidelberg man was not human... but then again the piece is according to the editorial quality of Fox News.

Actually no.

By Jennifer Viegas

Digging History

Published November 14, 2013

Discovery News

I've never found Fox News reports anymore misleading than CNN reports.

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That's not much better Myles, as it's already understood in the scientific community that any member of the genus Homo is considered human. Which obviously would make Heidelberg Man (Homo heidelbergensis) a human. The point of interest per the article is really this, at what level of humanities existance did we start making spears?

cormac

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The point of interest per the article is really this, at what level of humanities existance did we start making spears?

cormac

Probably right after we got unhappy with clubs.

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Thanks for clearing that up cormac. So, our distant ancestor were indeed human, just not modern humans (is this correct?).

Probably right after we got unhappy with clubs.

LOL!

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Thanks for clearing that up cormac. So, our distant ancestor were indeed human, just not modern humans (is this correct?).

LOL!

Hi Lilly,

Correct. All humans fall within the genus Homo, which starts with Homo habilis c.2.5 mya. Anatomically modern humans (AMH) originate c.200,000 BP as supported by both the archaeological finds of Omo Kibish, Ethiopia (Omo 1 and 2) as well as genetic studies relating to mitochondrial DNA haplogroup L c.192,400 BP. Behaviorally modern humans date to no earlier AFAIK than 100,000 BP. Swede could elaborate more on the latter, but what we see quite often in the media is a sizeable lack of understanding of the entire human line, each groups relation to the others within same, as well as the nomenclature already established. Hope that helps.

cormac

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I wonder if pointed sticks , without stone tips, were in use for stabbing game as early as clubs. Observing other animals hunt, we would learn that Piercing the flesh of the prey was the most commonly used method. What animal clubs it's prey to death? A big hand held Tooth would work fine ... until you figured out you could also throw it.

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Correct. All humans fall within the genus Homo, which starts with Homo habilis c.2.5 mya. Anatomically modern humans (AMH) originate c.200,000 BP as supported by both the archaeological finds of Omo Kibish, Ethiopia (Omo 1 and 2) as well as genetic studies relating to mitochondrial DNA haplogroup L c.192,400 BP. Behaviorally modern humans date to no earlier AFAIK than 100,000 BP. Swede could elaborate more on the latter, but what we see quite often in the media is a sizeable lack of understanding of the entire human line, each groups relation to the others within same, as well as the nomenclature already established. Hope that helps.

Very helpful, thanks. I'm always impressed by some of the things I learn here on UM.

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I wonder if pointed sticks , without stone tips, were in use for stabbing game as early as clubs. Observing other animals hunt, we would learn that Piercing the flesh of the prey was the most commonly used method. What animal clubs it's prey to death? A big hand held Tooth would work fine ... until you figured out you could also throw it.

There were horn tipped spears too, as well as fire hardened wood. Sometimes all three types have been found in the same paleontological dig. Probably a question of "economical" capability of the bearer.

Edited by questionmark
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I was thinking of the Boxgrove site in Southern England where rhinos were butchered with stone tools about 500,000 years ago by Homo heidelbergenis. They apparently used wood spears. There was another site in Germany where the actual complete spears were found.

As for what Questionmark said about "economic capabilities". Here in New Jersey during the Archaic flintknapping was a specialized skill done only by certain craftsmen. Some of the more unskilled hunters probably could not "afford" them and that is the reason we find antler spearpoint tips. The same thing might have occurred in other areas.

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There were horn tipped spears too, as well as fire hardened wood. Sometimes all three types have been found in the same paleontological dig. Probably a question of "economical" capability of the bearer.

thanks q, ya, i knew of fire hardened wood tips , and bone tips, .. forgot about horn tips, good idea though. We probably ate fruits and nuts and greens and bugs and worms and whatnot for a lonnng time before we went hunting for larger food?

* interesting piney, (and good to see you back in this neck of the woods) I actually had just typed .. " Eventually, the guy that was handiest at making stone tips must have been rich! lol " ... but deleted it.

Edited by lightly
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Did not know that the Heidelberg man was not human... but then again the piece is according to the editorial quality of Fox News.

And if Man is 85,000 years older as a race, I'm sure Fox news will blame it on the Democrats somehow. :yes:

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thanks q, ya, i knew of fire hardened wood tips , and bone tips, .. forgot about horn tips, good idea though. We probably ate fruits and nuts and greens and bugs and worms and whatnot for a lonnng time before we went hunting for larger food?

* interesting piney, (and good to see you back in this neck of the woods) I actually had just typed .. " Eventually, the guy that was handiest at making stone tips must have been rich! lol " ... but deleted it.

The human diet is not as clear cut as some like to have it, it was very different from region to region and from epoch to epoch. The going theory is that humans (given the tooth evolution) was first vegetarian, then a mixture between vegetarian and carrion scavenger, from there we went to mostly carnivorous and lately (since the discovery of agriculture) eating a more or less balanced meat/vegetable/grain diet.

As to rich and poor: you always have to think that at the time forming stone was as much high tech as writing an algorithm that beats the stock exchange every time is today. Whoever was capable of doing it was the richest in the tribe.

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What?...what!? Lol what does this mean!? So they count as out of place objects now? Maybe the T-rex used them as toothpicks?

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It seems we were just reading of a Mars rock which looked exactly like an iguana. So, I find it amusing that coincidence is not considered in this event ... could we have an object that just happens to appear exactly like a spearhead. Just sayin'

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It seems we were just reading of a Mars rock which looked exactly like an iguana. So, I find it amusing that coincidence is not considered in this event ... could we have an object that just happens to appear exactly like a spearhead. Just sayin'

Any good flintknapper or archeologist can tell the difference between a "artifact" and naturally broken stone. Especially if the artisan put some time in it. The most common misidentification is with various scrapers and flake tools.

I find it funny that the most overlooked tool by surface collectors is the graver which has a oblivious point on it. I have more gravers than scrapers because people spot scrapers easier and they just ignore gravers in fields

But then again, a lot of people bring me stuff that was broken with a plow thinking it was a scraper.

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I'd heard before that there were axes/scrapers that were older, so given they, Pre-Modern Humans, were using spears, the evolution to using stone tips seems natural to me, even if they were Homo Heidelbergensis.

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If this is a true find.then its awesome I like reading about early man

Edited by coolguy
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I came across this web surfing ...

http://archive.archa...efs/spears.html

World's Oldest Spears Volume 50 Number 3, May/June 1997 by Arlette P. Kouwenhoven

Radiocarbon dating has confirmed that three wooden spears found in a coal mine in Schöningen, near Hannover, Germany, are the oldest complete hunting weapons ever found. Some 380,000 to 400,000 years old, the six- to 7.5-foot javelins were found in soil whose acids had been neutralized by a high concentration of chalk near the coal pit. They suggest that early man was able to hunt, and was not just a scavenger. The development of such weapons may have been crucial to the settling of Stone Age northern Europe, whose cold climate and short daylight hours limited hunting.

**more in link ^

Edited by lightly
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https://asunews.asu....115_stonespears

A collaborative study involving researchers at Arizona State University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Cape Town found that human ancestors were making stone-tipped weapons 500,000 years ago at the South African archaeological site of Kathu Pan 1 – 200,000 years earlier than previously thought. This study, “Evidence for Early Hafted Hunting Technology,” is published in the Nov. 16 issue of the journal Science.

Hafted spear tips are common in Stone Age archaeological sites after 300,000 years ago. This study shows that hafted spear tips were also used in the early Middle Pleistocene, a period associated with Homo heidelbergensis, the last common ancestor of Neandertals and modern humans.

“Rather than being invented twice, or by one group learning from the other, stone-tipped spear technology was in place much earlier,” said Schoville. "Although both Neandertals and humans used stone-tipped spears, this is the first evidence that this technology originated prior to or near the divergence of these two species."

Edited by lightly
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