Re: Ohio man finds 15,000-year-old flint spear tip

On Dec 13, 7:18 pm, Matt Giwer <jul...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Melodious Thunk wrote:
On Dec 12, 7:02 pm, Matt Giwer <jul...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jack Linthicum wrote:
This is interesting. From Clovis-first and 12,000 years give or take
we now can identify a spear point to 3,000 years earlier. Perhaps it
had an inscription, in Chinese, "Made in 13,000 BC"
;-) Reminds me of the first arrowhead I found as a kid. "Dad, which
Tribe is 'pat pend'?"
The date is probably based on the conjectured date of the extinction of the
Mastodon or equivalently large game animals. The size of the point would
indicate the size of the game. It probably could be as old as the oldest Clovis
point found.
Is there literature that supports size of points varying by size of
game? (It might be true of european technology, I don't know; I don't
think it's true of North American technology.)

You don't use a .30-06 to hunt squirrels. Clearly a large point is going to be
suitable to mount on a large haft and also not used for squirrels. There is no
need for literature. It is the way things are. And if the weapon is over-matched
to the game there is the secondary problem that smaller game is faster while the
heavier weapon is always slower to use. Add to that practicality of making them.
Three or four small points for small game against large ones for big game and
finding straight enough lengths of tree branch in large size is harder than for
smaller. It is a waste of effort to make the weapon too large.

At least in North America, the same little teeny arrowheads, & dart
tips, were used whether hunting bison, elk, or deer... or Brits,
Spaniards, & Frenchmen. Smaller game was usually taken in other ways.
The evidence supports the observations of early French and English
explorers & settlers, who were amazed at the penetrating power of
those little teeny arrowheads. There are too many anecdotes about an
arrow passing clean through a bison, and taking down a second one, to
discount them all as fantasy. Have you not read how the early English
on the east coast were afraid to allow the NDNs to see what a gun
could do, close-up, since NDN weaponry was clearly superior?

With darts & arrows, the makers strived (still do of course) for
consistency in *weight*. Otherwise, if each arrow in your quiver is a
different weight, your accuracy is nil. Accuracy and power at release
are what counts.

And to digress into my personal favorite, hunting mastodons was likely like
hunting lion in Africa -- a rite of passage not for food. The bigger the game
the more dangerous it is to hunt. It is not wise to lose hunters to mastodons
when a few deer are much safer and don't require the entire tribe to work for a
week to preserve.

Chalk the rest up to science writer syndrome.
Are there any pictures of the artifact?

I only know what was posted here.
.

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