I shouldn't bite at every sarky comment, but that's just me.
If you're interested, I'll list where you're looking in the wrong direction.
Firstly, throwing spears is completely irrelevant. Nobody's proposing anything about that activity. It's a hunting technique that must have emerged very late, and is in no way connected to the early use of the stick.
Modern apes are absolutely crap at throwing. It needs mental development as well as physical. And all you need is a bit of common sense to work out that once you've thrown your sharp stick, you are defenceless.
I was talking about a solid, hardwood stick, which is an extremely effective weapon, so long as you hang onto it. Especially in the hands of a creature with very strong hands and arms.
Imagine you had to enter a yard which held an agressive dog that was sure to attack you. If you had the choice, would you take a big stick, or not? How much safer would you feel if you had a good solid two-meter hardwood stick in your hands? And if the ends were sharpened, wouldn't you feel even more confident?
And how daft would it be to throw the pole at the dog? You would naturally keep hold of it, and if you felt really threatened, you could shove it down it's throat, poke at it's eyes, or just stab it.
Without the stick, a big dog would be favourite. With the stick, I would back myself to fight off any dog.
So I'm talking about hand-held sticks, not throwing-spears.
Now put yourself in the place of some smallish newly-upright apes, looking for carcasses to scavenge.
You can't sprint like your four footed ancestors. Your canine teeth are receding, and ineffective. All you have is a few stones, but you are crap at throwing. How would you feel, if you met a couple of hyenas? They can out-run you, out bite you, they are bigger than you, and they are skilful at working together. You wouldn't stand the slightest chance.
Can you really imagine that these small apes wandered around looking for carcasses with just a few stones for protection? (in any case, the evidence strongly indicates that for millions of years, stones were not carried about, they were used where they were found).
So if you ignore the use of sticks, you have apes wandering about with no protection, with nothing in their hands, when surrounded by extremely efficient predators. And they survived like that for three and a half million years. Apparently. When suitable weapons lay all around them.
Ilovelucy wrote:
It's all a bit more complicated than that I'm afraid. Humans did indeed use sharpened spears later in the day, according to the archaeological record, and their numbers would have helped them to defend against predators.
Of course it's more complicated. Nobody's saying it's simple.
I wonder what sharpened spears you mean, in the archaeological record?
You should know that spears simply don't appear at all in the archaeological record, because they rot, and get broken down by termites.
As for numbers helping against predators, it doesn't seem to help the wildebeest. You need large size, or weapons, or speed, or wings, or the ability to shin up a tree.
I'm sure that you know that at the very time that our ancestors began living on the ground, they lost their big canine teeth, their main weapons. So they had no effective defence at all.
Ilovelucy wrote:
Baboons don't need spears to fight off and kill leopards;
What? Where did you get that idea? Baboons are a regular prey of leopards. I've seen on film a female leopard face down an entire troop of about 100 baboons, which scattered and ran. They got too close to her den, where she had cubs.
A group of about fifteen big male baboons finally faced her, and she backed off, but only after she had moved the entire troop on.
The baboons were terrified. She was perfectly confident.
Baboons maybe kill cubs if they come across them, but on the evidence of my eyes, even one female leopard can face down an entire troup.
Ilovelucy wrote:
It has been hypothesised that early hominids may have scared predators away from carcasses by throwing stones at them, far more effective than approaching with sticks
A pretty dumb hypothesis. Like I said, it's established that stones were not carried around. And again, you try fighting off a big dog by throwing stones. ( which you would have to conveniently find at the right time ) It just doesn't wash.
But would you like to face a small band of chimps, with sharpened sticks, and the skilled ability to stab you with them? I'd rather face stones any day. Contrast the brain power needed to accurately throw stones, compared to stabbing you with a sharp stick.
Ilovelucy wrote:
Many humans also did indeed hunt in the woods at closer quarters, such as the Neanderthals and Homo heidelbergensis. No resurgence of climbing ability happened there.
Of course not. Nobody says it should. Once man had the all wooden spear, they had no need of climbing to escape predators. They became THE dominant predator.
Ilovelucy wrote:
The point remains, this was the sole item of human technology that humans used for over a million years, it is implanted deep within our psyches. Deep down, everything that we create, be it rockets, pens, rifles or strap on dildos, they are all linear ancestors of the Acheulean hand axe.
That thinking is purely the result of the fact that stone doesn't rot.
It's absolutely silly to assume that because we don't find the spears, they weren't in use. So we were knapping stones, and still hadn't worked out that a stick is a brilliant weapon? That you can kill snakes with, without getting bitten? Or porcupines, without getting spiked? And what about the digging stick? There's good evidence that robust australopithecenes were digging roots, as was Lucy, in all probability. Digging naturally sharpens the end of a stick. It's no big jump to use it for multi purposes.
Finally, Chris Stringer was one of several professional anthropologists that I sent a summary to, when I first wrote the stick hypothesis up a few years ago. Every one responded favourably, and Chris Stringer was particularly astute.
He said that it was an interesting idea, but would be hard to prove (quite true) but that it had merit and should be taken further. So you dropped the wrong name there.
Briar patch moment.
