To Kill Mammoths in the Ice Age, People Used Planted Pikes, Not Throwing Spears, Researchers Say
upstart writes:
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 mastadons? 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.
Drawing upon multiple sources of writings and artwork, a team of Berkeley archaeologists reviewed historical evidence from around the world about people hunting with planted spears.
They also ran the first experimental study of stone weapons that focused on pike hunting techniques, revealing how spears react to the simulated force of an approaching animal. Once the sharpened rock pierced the flesh and activated its engineered mounting system, they say, the spear tip functioned like a modern day hollow-point bullet and could inflict serious wounds to mastodons, bison and saber-toothed cats.
"This ancient Native American design was an amazing innovation in hunting strategies," said Scott Byram, a research associate with Berkeley's Archeological Research Facility and first-author of a paper on the topic published today in the journal PLOS ONE. "This distinctive Indigenous technology is providing a window into hunting and survival techniques used for millennia throughout much of the world."
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