Mammoth vs. Stone Spears

[safisher]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Doesn't really help since we don't know whether aboriginal hunting weapons and techniques used for modern game is the same as those used to hunt the megafauna.

Are there any cave paintings in Australia? Some I have seen are detailed enough to show spears and bows used in hunting. I think these were dated 30,000 BC.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

There seems to be ample evidence that elephant can be taken with spears, in fact there is video of just that happening. I am not seeing the problem with this. There are pygmies that hunt elephant with thrust (rather than thrown) spears.

Metal spears are a world of difference between stone or fire hardened spears.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by safisher

Are there any cave paintings in Australia? Some I have seen are detailed enough to show spears and bows used in hunting. I think these were dated 30,000 BC.

Quite a lot of "incredibly ancient" paintings - I use quotes because they've been actively repainted to keep them fresh, so they've survived for a very very long time despite often not being in protected caves.

I believe there was evidence that bows made it to Australia, and then were forgotten. There's a general trend of abandoning technology as you move from the north to the south - which actually ties into that other thread about minimum population to support a given TL. In this case we're talking about subdivisions of TL 0, and low population due to a rather inhospitable environment, not apocalypse or interplanetary colonization, but still.

The petroglyphs at Murujuga appear to be ~10 000 years old.

Ooo, the Ubirr art is possibly over 40 000 years old.

But aboriginal art tends to portray people, animals, and "ceremonies" rather than clear illustrations of events.

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Metal spears are a world of difference between stone or fire hardened spears.

I would like to hear your thought about what you think the differences are.

Here are mine:

Regarding stone - not for this function. Metal is superior in in its toughness and in being able to be used against other metal objects. Neither of these is a concern in this scenario. Stone points are as sharp or sharper than steel. Experiments with a modern London butcher handling hand axes for dressing and jointing meat from an animal prove that.

Most of the Neanderthal tool kits tended towards heavier heads with fairly thick cross sections. For a long time scientists pointed at this as an indicator that they were not as evolved in their tool making as H. sap sap. Recently some other thoughts about the suitability of the spear points for hunting big game up close may prove that heavy thick points don't break as often as lighter blades do. They may have preferred them for that reason.

If a stone point penetrates the animal and breaks the animal will still bleed. The hunter just makes another point later. Apparently it is easy to make points.

If the point hits a bone and is deflected it may or may not break. The real concern here is this - Did the hunters bring enough spears to give them a good chance of causing the bleed out of the mammoth?

Fire hardened spears - you got me there. Definitely a weapon of last resort. But I don't think those were part of the scenario.

[Lord Carnifex]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

Fire hardened spears - you got me there. Definitely a weapon of last resort. But I don't think those were part of the scenario.

I think I brought them up. For late h. erectus onward. not the primary weapon, but less expensive (in terms of resources, finding those resources, and effort putting it together) and therefore disposable. At least until core and flake flint spearheads and twine, but by then a lot of sites may be using bows.

[aesir23]

The Clovis culture, which is often blamed for the extinction of megafauna in N. America definitely hunted mammoths, mastadon, bison, etc. for meat, hide, and bone for tools and shelters. They also definitely produced a great number of spear points (probably for atlatl darts) many of which were found in or near mammoth remains.

My old experimental Archaeology professor claimed that he could throw an atlatl dart through a car door. While they lag behind the bow and arrow for range, accuracy, and rate of fire, atlatls make up for it in raw power.

IIRC, the bow didn't automatically replace spear throwers after its invention, rather the decline in the use of the atlatl coincides with the decline of megafauna.

Joseph Paul is absolutely correct about neanderthals not using ranged weapons and having bone breakage patterns consistent with close combat with large mammals. But Cro Magnon and later Sapiens probably relied heavily on the atlatl in their tactics.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by 0B1-KN0B

most of the meat on something like a mammoth will probably go to waste, since it's hard to preserve that much meat all at once.

Dr. Daniel Fisher has demonstrated that meat can be preserved for some time by submerging it in the middle of a lake or pond in temperate climates. I can't find the original article I read about it, but this article for kids covers his methods and findings adequately.

[Joseph Paul]

Caloric intake for cold adapted Neanderthals is substantially more than we are used to. I believe I have seen figures of better than 3000 calories a day. They ate a lot and I suspect hunted a lot. They did this for about 200,000 years so I am thinking they had it down pat.

[aesir23]

Since this is a GURPS thread, I'll go ahead and post my pleistocene Martial Arts styles:

Neanderthal Hunting 5

Unlike their neighbors and rivals, the Cro-Magnon Man, Neanderthals never used ranged weapons to hunt. Their spears were heavy and not designed to be thrown, they killed the dangerous ice age mega-fauna up close and personal, relying on their strength and intelligence to out fight much larger prey. Getting out of the way of charging beasts would have been paramount to survival, for this they would have used acrobatic dodges and the Evade maneuver. Alternately the Neanderthal may “brace for a stop-thrust” (B366). One tactic may have been for one group of Neanderthals to use screams and shouts to drive their prey into a waiting group of hidden Neanderthals. Many Neanderthal probably carried a knife, but these would have been worthless against a large mammal of the sort they hunted, useful only for coup-de-grace against an injured target or as a weapon of last resort.

Skills: Acrobatics, Running, Spear, Stealth
Techniques: Attack from Above, Close Combat (Spear), Evade (Acrobatics), Retain Weapon (Spear), Targeted Attack (Spear Thrust/Vitals, Vs. Quadrupeds)
Cinematic Skills: Kiai, Power Blow
Cinematic Techniques: Roll with Blow, Springing Attack
Perks: Special Exercises (DR 1 with Tough Skin), Special Exercises (Striking ST +1), Sure Footed (Uneven), Teamwork (Neanderthal Hunting)

Optional:
Axe/Mace, Camouflage, Knife, Tracking, Wrestling

Cro-Magnon Hunting

The primary hunting tool of Ice Age H. Sapiens was the Atlatl (spear-thrower). This powerful weapon would be used at a range, probably from hiding. For close quarters self-defense Cro-Magnon Man would probably either use the Atlatl dart as a melee spear or switch to the knife or axe.
Atlatls were in many ways a better weapon for hunting mega fauna than the bow (invented much later than the Atlatl, but present in some regions for most of the last ice age), what it lost in range, rate of fire, and accuracy, it made up in raw power.
It nevertheless probably took several hunters working in in coordination to bring down a mammoth or wholly rhino.
It is completely fair and reasonable to make a version of this style that uses Bow instead of Spear-Thrower available to players in campaigns that take place less than ~40,000 years ago.

Skills: Camouflage, Spear, Spear-Thrower, Stealth
Techniques: Targeted Attack (Spear-Thrower Vitals, Quadrupeds)
Cinematic Skills: Zen Archery
Cinematic Techniques: None
Perks: Special Exercises (Arm St +1), Team Work (Cro-Magnon Hunting)

Optional: Axe/Mace, Bow, Fast Draw (Atlatl Dart), Knife, Tracking

[Joseph Paul]

Cool!

No use of thrown weapons is interesting. There seems to be one school of thought that Hn could not execute an overhand throw due to shoulder geometry differences. Don't know if that will pan out or not.

I wonder if using close in melee weapons tactics actually turns on the psychology of the animal hunted. Do they act differently when attacked closely as opposed to at longer ranges?