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My latest paper, published #openaccess @OpenQuaternary : A Review of Ethnographic Use of Wooden Spears and Implications for Pleistocene Hominin Hunting. https://www.openquaternary.com/articles/10.5334/oq.85/
Thread: This paper is the 1st ethnographic review of the use of wooden spears
Thread: This paper is the 1st ethnographic review of the use of wooden spears
It shows that wooden spears were used in hunting and/or violence & are used today as children's training tools. In hunting they were used against a wide variety of prey: small (e.g. pademelons) and large (probably African elephant), docile (capybara) and dangerous (e.g. jaguar).
Climates and environments in which they were used are also wide-ranging, including arid deserts, equatorial rainforests and even polar tundra, and include hunting in open grasslands, shallow coastal sea-beds and dense forests.
Maybe most importantly the paper explores racism underpinning characterisations of societies using these spears, including fairly recently by archaeologists such as Rhys Jones. Connecting simple technologies with cognitive abilities is deeply problematic.
Simple technologies = simple cognition is arguably deeply racist, founded in colonial assessments of the technologies of non-industrial societies. More on this in the thought-provoking recent edited volume by @martinporr and Jacquiline Matthews https://www.routledge.com/Interrogating-Human-Origins-Decolonisation-and-the-Deep-Human-Past/Porr-Matthews/p/book/9781138300439
And as others like @J_C_French have recently argued, cherry-picking ethnographic data to suit a narrative really needs to end. As does just recycling and citing the same publications that are based on selective/incomplete datasets. https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/journals/article/50021
This review shows that evaluating Pleistocene wooden spears like those from #Schöningen on the basis of very selective ethnographic data has created an unbalanced view of the hunting abilities of hominins for whom this was likely the primary hunting technology.
In contrast with broad-brushed interpretations of spear technologies as limited, wooden spears are cleverly designed flexible tools, which can be used multi-functionally and with some very creative hunting strategies.
How can we more responsibly refer to ethnographic data to understand the deep past? This is something we do need to continue to think carefully about, but at the very least taking a more comprehensive approach to the record should help avoid some of the more common pitfalls.
All of the data accompanying the review are available in a collection on @figshare which will allow us to collectively update the database, add missing information, and correct any errors I have made. https://figshare.com/collections/Ethnography_of_Wooden_Spears/5085284/1
Thank you to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Advisory Council and @tasmuseum for access to and educating me about wooden spears, to @OpenQuaternary for an excellent publication experience, to reviewers who improved the paper, & @MatthewPope and @sheinalew for useful conversations
