Mystery solved. How and why human ancestors became upright.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

*pat, pat, pat*

[mistermack]

Apologies about the Lehringen spears, I meant the Shchoningen spears. They are the oldest wooden artifacts ever found, according to wikipedia, and they date to about 400,000 yrs ago.
(Link)
However, I have read extracts of studies done with electron microscopes on the edges of the first stone "choppers" which date to about 2.6 mya, and they found tiny fossilized particles of wood embedded in the cutting edge.

You can speculate what wood they were chopping, but I would claim that the MOST LIKELY wooden object would be a spear, or fighting stick. They would need regular sharpening, even of they were made from hardwood.

Before the use of choppers, they could be sharpened using the teeth, or scraping on exposed rocks, or even just dragging the end along the ground.

I think these findings are pretty strong evidence for spears at 2.6 mya. Still a long way short of six million years ago, but a lot older than 400,000 for the schoningen spears.
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[GenesForLife]

Re: Proof , Proof applies only to axiomatic-deductive systems such as Mathematics, Science runs on evidence, it cannot ever offer proof for anything because it is not an axiomatic-deductive system.

[Rob]

Deductive reasoning only gets you so far.

[mistermack]

Deductive reasoning only gets you so far.

Quite right, but lets not underestimate it's power. It can also expand our knowledge using tiny bits of information. Look at the information we can extract from a tooth or a bit of cranium.
Here's an example that applies to this question. Why don't we find fossilized spears?

The oldest spears, in fact the oldest wooden artefacts ever discovered, are the Schoningen spears. These are four beautifully preserved spears dating to about 380,000 years ago. The next oldest spear is one found at Lehringen, about 125,000 years old.

Here's where the maths and deductive reasoning come in.
There is a time gap between these two examples of about 250,000 years for which we have no spears.
If spears were in use at the beginning, and end of this period, it's well nigh certain they were in use for ALL of that period.

How many spears would you estimate were made in any one year in that period? If you say only 4, one each in Africa, Europe, Middle East and Asia, that's a million spears, discarded, broken, lost or thrown away, over that period.
If you say just 100 per continent, that's a hundred million. If you get realistic, and estimate several thousand per 'continent', that is several thousand million spears, made, used, lost broken, discarded during that time interval, without one turning up.

All this less than half a million years ago. So you should be able to deduce that the chances of finding one from SIX million years ago should be expected to be close to zero. But we live in hope.
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[Trolldor]

And once again you've demonstrated nothing.
Your hypothesis ain't crash hot at all is it?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Wild ass guessing only gets you so far.

[mistermack]

This is a competitor for the title of oldest spear, it's the pointed end of a spear, found at Clacton, England, and is now being dated at around 450,000 years old. It's made of hardwood, (Yew) and I really wouldn't fancy it between my ribs. It was found in connection with remains of horse and rhino, giant deer etc. and was the only weapon that would stand any chance of injuring such large animals at the time.



Here also is a link for a study done on the effectiveness of all-wooden spears, concentrating on the Boxgrove finds, also in England, and studying the type of damage that wooden spears do to bone, so that wooden spear use can be better identified in fossils. This stuff also dates to around the 400,000 yr age.
(Link)
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[Gawdzilla Sama]

So, tell me why that's not a spit for roasting meat over a fire?

[Trolldor]

And, even presuming that's true, our ancestors were already bipedal at that stage so your guess work still isn't a hypothesis.

[mistermack]

So, tell me why that's not a spit for roasting meat over a fire?

You'll have to take that up with the intelligent and highly qualified anthropologists who have extensively studied this very famous artefact.
I think if I were to tell them that Gawdzilla from Rationalia has doubts about their conclusions, I might spoil their day year career.
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[Gawdzilla Sama]

So, tell me why that's not a spit for roasting meat over a fire?

You'll have to take that up with the intelligent and highly qualified anthropologists who have extensively studied this very famous artefact.
I think if I were to tell them that Gawdzilla from Rationalia has doubts about their conclusions, I might spoil their day year career.
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Appeal to authority much?

[mistermack]

Appeal to authority much?

Well, when it's a straight choice between the opinion of a highly qualified professional, who knows his subject through and through, and some guy on a chat thread who seems to know next to nothing, I'll have to go with authority in that situation.
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[Gawdzilla Sama]

Appeal to authority much?

Well, when it's a straight choice between the opinion of a highly qualified professional, who knows his subject through and through, and some guy on a chat thread who seems to know next to nothing, I'll have to go with authority in that situation.
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Okay, dude, tell me how he KNOWS it was a spear and not a spit. Easy question.

[mistermack]

Okay, dude, tell me how he KNOWS it was a spear and not a spit. Easy question.

Look it up yourself, if it means that much to you. Do your own research.
It amazes me that you seem quite prepared to accept that they had barbecue technology, but hadn't mastered using a spear.
If you ask me which came first, the barbecue or the spear, I would personally have to guess it was the spear, but of course, barbecue evidence is thin.
I'm looking forward to reading your barcecue hypothesis, though.
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