Yesterday the discovery of a second short wooden stick from the site of Schöningen 13 II-4 (Germany) was published in Nature: Ecology and Evolution. Schöningen 13 II-4 dates to around 300,000 years ago and is best known for its collection of complete and nearly complete wooden spears and the remains of a large quantity ofContinue reading “Two Sticks: What a new find from Schöningen tells us about Pleistocene hominins”
Tag Archives: hunting
Skills Shortage! Or The Replicator’s Conceit
Experimental archaeology has run as a thread throughout my postgraduate studies, and I’ve conducted a number of different types of experiments on Pleistocene hunting weapons. Something that was clear early on in designing my experiments is that we have a present-day skills shortage in terms of how humans used early hunting spears. Once upon aContinue reading “Skills Shortage! Or The Replicator’s Conceit”
What’s in a name? Defining prehistoric weaponry
I have researched Palaeolithic weapons for almost 10 years and (miraculously) I still love writing and talking about them. I’ve written up some basics below on prehistoric weaponry, including some definitions, classifications, and a few archaeological ‘firsts’. But I want to think very briefly first why we need these definitions and classifications. We use definitionsContinue reading “What’s in a name? Defining prehistoric weaponry”
Tiwi throwing spears
For better or for worse (a bit of both I think), ethnographic research and ethnohistoric accounts have played an important role in how we have interpreted the archaeological signatures that people from the past have left behind. This is nowhere more true than the study of how recent hunter-gatherer groups have manufactured, curated, and usedContinue reading “Tiwi throwing spears”
