When hunting from a height (for example, from the edge of a gorge), “ordinary” spears turned out to be more effective than darts launched by a spear thrower.
The higher the hunter was in relation to the target, the more effective the throwing spear was, but the effectiveness of the spear thrower noticeably decreased. This conclusion was reached by a group of researchers who experimentally tested the tactics of Paleolithic hunters. They published the results of the experiment in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
The purpose of the experiment is to study how relief influenced the efficiency of hunting and the choice of weapons in the Paleolithic. The reason for it was a long-noticed feature of the sites of Paleolithic hunters – they often settled in areas with “pronounced” relief: next to steep cliffs, gullies, gorges and hollows. It is assumed that this terrain was more convenient for hunting.
As examples, they cite the sites of Solutre in France and Folsom in New Mexico (southern USA). It is believed that Solutre hunters drove herds of migrating horses into a dead-end gorge, and there, in a confined space, they killed them. Paleolithic Folsom hunters used similar tactics to drive bison.
With this tactic, it was possible to throw spears and darts at animals from a height, which theoretically simplified the hunt and also protected the hunters from hooves and horns. But how effective was such a hunt? This is what the authors of the new study decided to check.
To do this, they assessed the speed and kinetic energy of the impact of two types of weapons: a spear and a long dart launched by a spear thrower. Two researchers – Nam Kim and Metin I. Eren – threw spears and darts from different heights: from ground level, from three, six and nine meters. The target was on the ground and a scissor lift was used to change the height. Kim and Eren threw training spears from the Turbojav company, 182 centimeters long and weighing 800 grams, as well as darts 213 centimeters long and weighing 200 grams with a Basketmaker-type spear thrower (that is, those found at the monuments of the archaeological culture of “basket makers” in the southwest of North America ). Both experimenters threw both types of weapons ten times from each height. In total, they made 160 throws. Other researchers used a high-speed camera (four thousand frames per second) to record the last 80 centimeters of flight. This is how the speed of the weapon was measured, and the kinetic energy of the impact was calculated from it.
It turned out that for a spear both indicators increase with increasing height. Eren’s speed increased from 11.46 m/s (throwing at ground level) to 16.20 m/s (from 9 meters), that is, by 41.4%. For Kim – from 12.55 to 16.79 m/s (33.8%). The kinetic energy of the impact doubled for Eren and by 78.7% for Kim.
What was unexpected for the researchers was the decrease in the efficiency of the computer thrower and the dart: both the speed and kinetic energy of the impact decreased with increasing height. This may be due to mechanical limitations and stability of the projectiles: launching the darts downwards reduces the leverage effect, as the dart is not firmly secured at the start of the throw. Moreover, when using a spear thrower from ground level, the dart flew faster than a “separate” throwing spear.
Thus, for hunting in gorges it was better to use a spear rather than a “more advanced” spear thrower, and for hunting on open plains it was better to use it. This may explain why some communities of Paleolithic people did not use spear throwers (and why they are absent or few among finds at sites in areas with “pronounced” relief)
Source: www.nkj.ru
