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Schöningen Spear Replication Project - all stone tools

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Bonsai:
WOW,

great Job!!

Dane:
Bonsai, thanks! It was way too hot yesterday to work on this, but I'll be back to it asap.

Dane

Dane:
If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend getting a copy of Primitive Technology: A Book of Earth Skills, David Wescott, editor, Gibbs-Smith Publisher.

Errett Callahan had a good article on what experimental archeology is. He breaks it down into 3 levels. Level I is non-authentic and non-scientific. Level II is authentic but non-scientific, which he calls experiential. Third is Level III, authentic and scientific. Just through this project, I’ve begun to understand in more than just an intellectual way what he is aiming at. I think most primitive bow projects straddle at least two of these categories, and sometimes all three. In other words, using power tools (band saw, etc), but authentic materials and designs, and documented at least from a construction perspective and aid (in progress shots to get advice on tiller, etc). One of the biggest single reasons for Level III is to report on and share information with others. We do that really well here on PA as a community, happily. Few of us, though, document projects for consumption outside the PA community, ie for technical, academic or lay audiences.

As for construction of an experiment, the primary goal of this spear project is to see how efficient and usable sharp pieces of stone are as wood working tools, and secondarily, how the spears will perform in the field. Could you feed your family or tribe if armed with such a spear? What is the range you can accurately throw the spear? How efficient is it at killing game of different sizes? What environments would it be more appropriately used in (steppe or prairie vs. woodland or mountainous terrain)? Can it be used for other purposes other than throwing or thrusting?

What I don’t believe thinking along these lines is for everyone, what I have always felt was lacking from my personal experience in making a (replica) wooden bow is a better understanding of what an ancient bowyer faced technically when using only stone tools, no modern workbench clamps, no tillering tree, no chalk line to find the center. The end result functionally of a, say, exact replica Holmegaard bow made with modern tools and one made with stone tools will be about the same (it tosses an arrow), but what is missing is the entire process of making that same bow with the limitations and strengths of authentic tools from the Mesolithic period the bow came from.

Other things we take for granted would become a large part of planning an all stone tool bow, such as the amount of time harvesting and creating the bow, using the most perfect stave or sapling you can find (ie no character staves, as you want to maximize the greater amount of time it takes to make a bow with stone tools, and minimize failure), no electric lights so all work has to be done outside or have a workspace with good natural light, a sinew or fiber string to mark the center, charcoal or some other material to mark out dimensions and to help in tillering by marking areas for wood removal, and so on. Even a very large diameter tree you wouldn’t think twice of felling with an axe or chainsaw would have to be considered from a different perspective, with fire felling or storm damaged trees (off the top of my head) being maybe the best ways to get a big tree on the ground. Then you have to split it with wooden or antler wedges, and sledge hammers and steel splitting wedges of course are off limits.

Dane

AndrewS:
Hi Dane, interesting project ;)

"Es handelt sich um insgesamt sieben recht gut erhaltene Holzspeere. Sie haben Längen von 1,82 m bis ca. 2,50 m bei einem maximalen Durchmesser von ca. 3 cm bis 5 cm.

Nach den Holzartenbestimmungen durch W. H. Schoch sind bis auf eine Ausnahme alle Speere, ebenso wie das mutmaßliche Wurfholz, aus Fichte hergestellt. Es sind dafür Stämmchen ausgewählt und die Spitzen der Speere auf z.T. mehr als 60 cm Länge jeweils aus der Basis der Stämmchen herausgearbeitet worden. Die Astansätze wurden sorgfältig abgearbeitet. Der größte Durchmesser und Schwerpunkt liegt bei den Speeren im Vorderteil des Schaftes. Dies läßt erkennen, daß die Schöninger Stücke keine Stoßlanzen, sondern Wurfspeere sind."

This is the Part with the measurements: They found seven spears. The length is between 72" and 99". The maximum diameter 1 1/4 " to nearly 2". The wood that is used is mostly spruce (only one spear is not from spruce). The spears are made from little Trees (saplings are used). The point are worked out of the basic of the saplings on a length up to 25". The greatest diameter and also the emphasis of the spears is loceted in the front part of the spear. The spears from Schöningen are for throwing and not for pushing.

May be that helps more than a googel translation :)

Dane:
Andrew, thanks! That is immensely helpful.

I'll have to go out and find some softwood saplings, spruce if possible, or a comparable wood. Interesting that they were made from lighter wood. Maybe that helped in distance throws? Or was it the only type of wood available to the original makers? I wonder what the weight of a javalin is you see used at track and field competitions? 

Softer wood would of course also be easier to work with stone tools.

Dane

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