Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: The development of hunting weapons from spears to spearthrowers to bows is universally accepted and seldom questioned. Yet, proxy evidence from Pleistocene Eurasia suggests that bow hunting may have been in play before, or contemporaneous with spearthrower-and-dart hunting. If this was the case, it raises questions about how we think about the origins of spearthrower-and-dart hunting during the late Pleistocene. To address the topic, I summarise direct evidence for Eurasian spearthrowers and analyse their adaptive potential for Homo sapiens groups during MIS 2 as a contextual innovation – instead of a sequential development. I predict that if spearthrowers were used in Africa, it may have been in the Palearctic during a green-Sahara phase, instead of in the more biodiverse Afrotropic that would have stimulated the invention of bow hunting.
Source: Quaternary Science Reviews
Author: Marlize Lombard
Institution: University of Johannesburg
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,520
Funder: University of Johannesburg
OpenAlex ID: W4294967775