I just listened to a 45-minute lecture about a stick
And I think you should, too. It was a Prehistoric Society lecture about advances in analyzing very ancient wood. Youtube won’t let me copy the URL at a particular timestamp, I guess because it was a live broadcast. You’ll probably find it on their channel with the housekeeping stuff at the beginning trimmed away.
It was about the archaeological dig in Schöningen, Germany, which was a site where humans butchered horses 300,000 years ago. I say humans; she says hominids throughout because they don’t know which of the many early two-legged species lived there.
The site is remarkable because they have found a number of completely intact spear and throwing sticks. Throwing sticks were smaller and pointed at both ends and they think they were thrown overhand like boomerangs. They are capable of killing an animal. I don’t wish to learn how she knows this.
The lecture was about one particular throwing stick (ID 1779) and all the interesting things they’ve learned about it and the interesting methods they used. It’s about 45 minutes.
You can see the Sketchfab 3D model of it here. The model isn’t all that interesting, but I’m determined to post it because had to copy the URL manually from my phone to my computer. It was https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/schoningen-13-ii-double-pointed-stick-b3f2f1267d4a4dd7bd7fd3608f65fec4.
Posted: October 16th, 2024 under personal.
Comments: 2
Comments
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: October 16, 2024, 5:45 pm
I was going to suggest an atlatl but I don’t think that’s this.
We once got our hides skint for chasing a bull out of a pasture over a fence with apple flinging sticks, same concept as an atlatl, but it was, probably, classified as an appleapple.
Not one of my more glorious moments.
We were classified as Annoyingus maleus youngian hominidi.
Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: October 16, 2024, 7:11 pm
Too bad the “double-pointed throwing stick” has a break in the middle. Unusable now, doncha think?
I thought boomerangs were thrown sidearm so that they would ride the air underneath the rotating wing thereby returning the implement to the thrower. BTW, I lost the only boomerang I ever had because the darn thing would not come back to me. Maybe it was a defective unit. I will never know.
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