Primitive Archer

Main Discussion Area => Flintknapping => Topic started by: NeolithicMan on November 27, 2013, 09:01:23 pm

Title: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: NeolithicMan on November 27, 2013, 09:01:23 pm
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/stone-tipped-spears-were-around-homo-sapiens

Check out this extremely old spear head and the craziness of its very exsistance... a little dramatic maybe but its still really interesting.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: PrimitiveTim on November 27, 2013, 09:06:19 pm
I'm interested to see what the scientists conclude about this one :D
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: JackCrafty on November 27, 2013, 09:11:58 pm
yawn.   :-\  I wish they would report on the items that were found in context that lead them to believe this was a spear point and not a butchering tool, for example.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: cowboy on November 27, 2013, 09:17:12 pm
Hmm, that's almost too deep for me to comprehend if its true. Oh well, think ill go back to welding and chipping :).
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: Newbow on November 27, 2013, 09:34:07 pm
Patrick,
Here's a quote from the abstract of the PLoS ONE article:
"Data from velocity-dependent microfracture features, diagnostic damage patterns, and artifact shape reported here indicate that pointed stone artifacts from Ethiopia were used as projectile weapons (in the form of hafted javelin tips) as early as >279,000 years ago."
Link to that article: 
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0078092
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: burchett.donald on December 01, 2013, 10:05:45 am
 Where do they come up with these dates and number of years? ;D Give ma a break...At any time anyone could have chipped that rock. Maybe it fell from a spaceship. I usually never pay attention to this type of speculation, but who pays these people to come up with these ideas. It's a freekin rock!
                     No pun intended to NeolithicMan's post...

               


 
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: JackCrafty on December 01, 2013, 12:56:52 pm
Newbow, that's a very nerdy link.  I'm impressed!!  Was it linked to the article?  I didn't check.

The link mentions experimental techniques but places most the emphasis in theoretical and mathematical models.  That is not wise, in my view, but it does give insight into how the archaeologists are thinking.  Just my 2 cents.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: papoints on December 01, 2013, 03:39:53 pm
Are they sure it was knapped?  I bet if you have a 5 gallon bucket of chunks of obsidian and threw it off a mountainside several would look like that when they got to the bottom.  Just a thought.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: Newbow on December 01, 2013, 03:52:52 pm
The link was in the original article.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: Prarie Bowyer on December 01, 2013, 04:47:40 pm
Where do they come up with these dates and number of years? ;D Give ma a break...At any time anyone could have chipped that rock. Maybe it fell from a spaceship. I usually never pay attention to this type of speculation, but who pays these people to come up with these ideas. It's a freekin rock!
                     No pun intended to NeolithicMan's post...

               


 

The dry boring stuff is usually filtered out for us laypersons in these articles.  However where appropriate carbon dating is used.  While it has it's pitfalls in terms of what can be carbon dated it is fairly accurate with in a margin of error.  The actual working paper will state the margin of error.  Geology is also used.  So it becomes a measure of how deep and in what layer of sediment the materials were found in. 

There are few human fossils from this period because there weren't many of us.  Not all bones get fossilized.  Most are scattered, crushed and dissolved beyond recognition.  Fossilization requires specific circumstances.  I think the reason we have so many dino fossils is because there was a LARGE number of them so naturally many would find their way into the circumstances that allow fossilization to occur.   

This isn't the first claim that pre neanderthal hominids used some sort of stone tools.  The earliest that were actually fashioned tended to represent a flake of some sort that was touched up or dressed into the point. 

So it is conceivable.  We learn new stuff about this all the time.  AND Ethiopia is so far thought to be the origin of modern humans.  ALL of us walking and talking today came from a man and woman that originate in that area.  That isn't to say that there weren't other lines of humans .... they just didn't make it to present day. 

The study uses the rate of change in mitochondrial DNA, and it stops there a LONG time ago.  So .... really,  we are all black.  The theory is something like "Genetic Adam".
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=finding+genetic+eve&sm=3

The above should get you started if you wanted learn more.


Last I looked in on the topic of human evolution we are still looking for a "Link" or a transitional stage creature or two that explains the leap from some of the known forms to modern humans.  I'm sure somebody will find a femur and a 3"x3" section of skull cap and claim this is it.  But eventually we will find these "links" and and complete the picture of human evolution.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: Newbow on December 01, 2013, 06:10:07 pm
Although many don't think so, and it seems to be trendy to dismiss archeological speculation, especially if it doesn't fit an individual's current thinking, the folks who write up stuff like this paper in PLoS ONE don't make up their ideas/conclusions out of thin air.  The paper is only "nerdy" because it was written by and for other scientists rather than for the public at large.  The paper explains what they found and the what and why of how they reached the conclusions they arrived at.  When peer reviewed and published, as this one was, it is offered to other members of the profession who can then test the conclusions reached and offer either support or refutation in another paper which will explain how they reached their conclusions.  The paper under discussion here is hardly the last word.  Scientists can make mistakes, certainly.  They do it all the time.  But they are mistakes, generally, due to insufficient evidence available at the time they drew their conclusions and the conclusions reached are always subject to revision; holdouts who cling desperately to older paradigms (Clovis First, for instance) not withstanding.  How do they come up with all this stuff?  Nothing that archeologists, or any other scientific branch, do is a secret.   It is esoteric only if a person is unfamiliar with the specific methodology and a working understanding of that methodology is readily available to anyone who might be interested.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: burchett.donald on December 01, 2013, 07:58:46 pm
  I understand that you can carbon date a piece of obsidian but how do you date when it was knapped/chipped and can we even prove this wasn't a natural occurrence. I'm open minded to science and believe Genesis where I came from Adam but also believe and realize there was a world here before them. Take the dinosaurs and different fossils of extinct animals. I also believe there could have been a form of humanoid before man was created in the image of God. It just seems to be speculation on the spear points age. I know the rules are not to discuss religion and if this offends anyone I will erase this post and back out.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: Newbow on December 01, 2013, 10:40:31 pm
Carbon dating is probably the best known method for determining the age of objects that contain carbon but it is only one of a fair number.  Where possible it is preferred to use more than one method as one way will reinforce (or not) the accuracy of the other and generally narrow the possible error; the plus or minus number usually given with an age.  Newer procedures have made carbon dating more accurate than it was a few decades ago but it still has limitations (see: http://archserve.id.ucsb.edu/courses/anth/fagan/anth3/Courseware/Chronology/08_Radiocarbon_Dating.html , for a detailed description), the most serious, in this context, being the requirement for carbon to be present; something notably missing from stone points.  Obsidian can be measured directly to the time flakes were taken by Obsidian Hydration Dating (http://archserve.id.ucsb.edu/courses/anth/fagan/anth3/Courseware/Chronology/10_Obsidian_Hydration.html).  The age of other types of stone can sometimes be determined by luminescence dating: http://crustal.usgs.gov/laboratories/luminescence_dating/technique.html.  There are several other methods of radioactive decay aging that come into their own as radio carbon dating begins to reach its limits but they aren't usually used for the relatively recent dates that we look at in the Americas.  Where none of these direct (called Absolute) dating methods is possible there remain indirect (Relative) methods such as stratigraphic relationship, where an object's position relative to a known age layer (above, below, within) is used to give an approximate age.  The point is that there is no hocus pocus where ages are just pulled out of a hat to fit the whimsy of the individual.  There is a measured way such ages are determined and then they are offered up to the greater archeological (in our case) community for scrutiny to be either accepted or rejected.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: burchett.donald on December 01, 2013, 11:12:36 pm
Newbow,
             I read about Obsidian Hydration Dating and it was very interesting. Thank you for posting that link.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: JackCrafty on December 02, 2013, 02:51:40 am
Newbow, what did you think of the article?  Do you buy such things as, "velocity-dependent microfracture features"?

I've seen lab results from tests involving controlled fracturing (dropping a percussor from various heights onto an objective piece).  They are interesting but there are so many variables to consider.  "Velocity-dependent microfracture features", for example, seems hokey to me.

Hokey - Noticeably contrived; artificial.

I know that I can be VERY annoying, but please bear with me.   >:D (I only do this because I've admired your level-headed posts and I want to tap into your experience).

First of all, it doesn't take much force to cause a flake detachment on obsidian (the material in question).  Second, the more massive or immoveable the object being struck, the greater the force of impact for a given velocity.  Third, tremendous velocities can be generated with hand held objects.  Then there are obvious questions:  How do we account for moving targets?  Or, as part of an overall strategy, were the targets usually running away from or charging toward the hunters, for example?  Were the projectiles thrown horizontally or dropped from an elevated perch (e.g. high up in a tree)?  Or could the stone points have been placed on the tips of stakes at the bottom of a pit?  What about a deadfall trap with a heavy rock above and sharp stones below?  The heavy rock might make contact with the tips of the pointed stones, for example.  We must also keep in mind that hunting methods that are unethical or illegal today were probably common if not preferred back in the day.

I just don't see any clear way for "velocity-dependent microfracture features" for a given artifact to tell us anything about how the artifact was used.  Maybe the artifact was traveling with a high velocity when it got damaged?  Maybe not?  The writers believe they can determine the hunting strategy from the projectile.  IMO, that would be like trying to see what was written by looking at the pen.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: Newbow on December 02, 2013, 07:01:14 pm
Patrick:  The questions you pose are exactly the type that should be addressed to any new ideas that have to be inferred from evidence rather than from direct observation.  Questioning and testing proposed ideas is key to science, but to answer your question, yes, I buy the conclusions of the article.  I do so with the caveat that it is a statement of current thought and not the end-all final word.  If asked I would tell someone that "this is what they are saying about that today and this is why they are saying it".  If I am aware of a minority view I would mention it as well.  The reason that I "buy" the authors' conclusions is the huge amount of research that went before them.  The vast majority of the references cited in the paper refer to published work on exactly the same subject.  These previous papers address most, if not all of your concerns (An example from the Journal of Archaeological Science: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544031100080X).  The majority of the cited references have links the original paper, though in some cases you'll only get to see the abstract unless you want to pay for the entire thing.  Given some of the various titles, I'm taking at as an article of faith (I have only glanced at some of them) that those papers did sufficient impact testing to reasonably rule out impact damage in the form you suggest could be confounding.  The authors of the current paper also assumed the findings of the other papers to be reasonable and conducted their measurements based on those other papers, using only those points that exhibited damage that might be expected of impact, their purpose being to support mathematically the hypothesis (that hafted projectiles were probably in use much earlier than previously believed) of some of the other authors.  Again, as an article of faith, I have to accept that the microfracture features they tested for are truly diagnostic.  If they are not, someone will publish a paper challenging their findings, but I am not qualified to do so.  I might find that information if I were sufficiently motivated to read each of the 46 papers that these authors supplied links to, but I'm not.  Often, knowing the entire background of an investigation will allay reservations about the conclusions reached.  Not so often, but not never, knowing the background information will raise concerns rather than allay them.  I can't knowledgeably answer the questions you've posed.  If you are uncomfortable with my "article of faith" position, I suggest you contact the paper's authors at: yonatan.chemere@uct.ac.za.  That is the contact email for three of the authors at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.  Tell them you are a knapper and also do a column for PA and have questions and I'll bet they'll either answer directly or refer you to the paper(s) that address your concerns.
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: JackCrafty on December 03, 2013, 02:23:41 am
Newbow, thank you very much for your response.  Honestly, I didn't know what to expect.  I am pleasantly surprised and very grateful.

I purchased the article.  The 10 pages were worth the money.  It appears that microfracture features (seen only with a microscope/magnification), that indicate the speed of fractures, are present on very fine grained materials and obsidian.  The article focuses on the idea that "dynamic" (extremely high speed) fractures are caused by projectiles traveling at high speeds.  That makes sense but, like you said, further testing is needed.  If another method of producing these "high speed cracks" can be found, it could ruin everything.  Finding these features on pre-human or non-human altered objects could also prove disastrous.  Time will tell.

In my opinion, the greatest potential benefit of this research is in the manufacturing/reproduction of the artifacts.  Knowing the speed of the fracturing and the corresponding knapping method/material that produced that speed could settle questions about manufacturing processes once and for all.  Very exciting stuff!

I'm sure someone else has thought of this too.  I will write to the authors and find out.... unless you already know the answer and are willing to share a link to another paper?  :)
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: Newbow on December 03, 2013, 03:36:30 am
"In my opinion, the greatest potential benefit of this research is in the manufacturing/reproduction of the artifacts.  Knowing the speed of the fracturing and the corresponding knapping method/material that produced that speed could settle questions about manufacturing processes once and for all."

That's a direction for this line of inquiry I hadn't considered.  As you suggest, if demonstrated practical, that information could answer a whole lot of questions near and dear to the hearts of flint knappers as well as the greater archeological community.  I'm unaware of any research paper that deals with the "how" of tool manufacture in that way but on the face of it, it should be possible.  By all means, write and see what they can tell us!
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: JackCrafty on December 03, 2013, 09:20:59 am
I will do that.   :)
Title: Re: The oldest spearhead to date
Post by: JackCrafty on December 04, 2013, 12:31:02 am
Since I am now on the Science Direct mailing list, I received an email that shows articles that cite the article I purchased:

Wallner lines in a nanocrystalline Ni-23% Fe alloy
Scripta Materialia, Volume 67, Issue 11, 2012, 907-910
Jiang F., Vecchio K.S.

Thinking a bow-and-arrow set: Cognitive implications of middle stone age bow and stone-tipped arrow technology
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Volume 22, Issue 2, 2012, 237-264
Lombard M., Haidle M.N.

Assessing the macrofracture method for identifying Stone Age hunting weaponry
Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 38, Issue 11, 2011, 2882-2888
Pargeter J.

Rock type variability and impact fracture formation: Working towards a more robust macrofracture method
Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 40, Issue 11, 2013, 4056-4065
Pargeter J.

European Neanderthal stone hunting weapons reveal complex behaviour long before the appearance of modern humans
Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 39, Issue 7, 2012, 2304-2311
Lazuén T.

Identifying design and reduction effects on lithic projectile point shapes
Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 41, 2014, 297-307
de Azevedo S., Charlin J., González-José R.

Projectiles and the abuse of the use-wear method in a search for impact
Journal of Archaeological Science , , 2013,
Veerle Rots, Hugues Plisson

Chronological and behavioral contexts of the earliest Middle Stone Age in the Gademotta Formation, Main Ethiopian Rift
Quaternary International , , 2013,
Yonatan Sahle, Leah E. Morgan, David R. Braun, Balemwal Atnafu, W. Karl Hutchings

Projectile impact fractures and launching mechanisms: results of a controlled ballistic experiment using replica Levallois points
Journal of Archaeological Science , , 2013,
Radu Iovita, Holger Schönekeß, Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Frank Jäger

Dynamic fracturing: field and experimental observations
Journal of Structural Geology , Volume 23, Issue 8, 2001, 1223 1239
Amir Sagy, Ze'ev Reches, Itzhak Roman

Fracture markings from flake splitting
Journal of Archaeological Science , Volume 37, Issue 8, 2010, 2061 2065
Are Tsirk