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SUMMARY:The effectiveness of wooden spears as hunting weapons - Annemieke 
 Milks (University College London)
DTSTART:20180613T153000Z
DTEND:20180613T163000Z
UID:TALK105076@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jaap Saers
DESCRIPTION:Untipped wooden spears are the earliest weapons in the archaeo
 logical record\, dating from MIS 11 onwards. Although the most famous exam
 ples are those from Clacton-on-Sea (UK) and Schöningen (Germany)\, there 
 are further examples known from later Neanderthal sites\, as well as Late 
 Pleistocene and Holocene sites associated with modern humans. They were al
 so thrust and thrown by hand by recent foragers as weapons for hunting and
  violence\, making them one of the longest-serving tools known. Although m
 uch has been said about the functionality and in particular the limitation
 s of wooden spears\, the empirical data on the ballistics of these weapons
  and on their lethality when used to hunt large game is limited. In this t
 alk I will briefly review the archaeological and ethnographic record of ex
 amples of wooden spears including environmental settings\, prey targeted\,
  and effective distances when used as hand-thrown spears. I will compare t
 hese findings with new experimental data on their mechanics when used as t
 hrust and thrown weapons by skilled users\, in particular focusing on quan
 tified measures such as impact velocities\, kinetic energy\, and effective
  distance when thrown by hand. These findings have significant implication
 s for models about early hunting and innovations of weaponry in human evol
 ution.\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room\, Henry Wellcome Building\, Division of Biological A
 nthropology\, Fitzwilliam Street\, Cambridge\, CB2 3QG
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