Research results show that human ancestors may have ambushed and defeated charging animals by sticking spears into the ground instead of throwing them
Human ancestors are often depicted as hairy and wielding spears, which are generally assumed to have been used by hurling them at prey, but it has been suggested that they may have been used in a slightly different way.
Clovis points and foreshafts under braced weapon compression: Modeling Pleistocene megafauna encounters with a lithic pike | PLOS ONE
To kill mammoths in the Ice Age, people used planted pikes, not throwing spears, researchers say
https://phys.org/news/2024-08-mammoths-ice-age-people-pikes.html
Archaeologists at the University of California, Berkeley say that 13,000 years ago, our human ancestors likely anchored their spears to the ground at an angle that would allow them to pierce charging animals, delivering a much more powerful blow than a human could throw by hand, effectively taking down their prey.
Also, when throwing a spear, you have to guide the prey to a place where it is easy to kill, but there are not many convenient places. On the other hand, one advantage of stabbing a spear is that there are no restrictions on the terrain.
Around North America, Clovis points , tools thought to have been used on the tip of spears, have been discovered in various places. Clovis points are characterized by a jagged tip, and vary in size from the size of a thumb to the size of a smartphone. There is a depression in the center, and it is thought that this is where the wood or other material that would serve as the shaft of the spear was attached, but unfortunately the shaft has not yet been found. Thousands have been excavated throughout America, and some have even been unearthed from mammoth skeletons.
Scott Byrum of the University of California, Berkeley and his colleagues conducted weighted experiments to determine how Clovis points sliced through flesh, and found that after penetrating prey, Clovis points could come off the shaft and move in a way that caused damage inside the prey.
'Depictions of throwing spears make for interesting stories, but they likely don't take into account the realities of life in an Ice Age,' said study co-author Jun Ueno Sunseri. 'The energy a human arm can generate is nothing compared to the energy a charging animal can generate. These spears were designed to defend the user.'
In the coming months, Byrum and his colleagues plan to build a sort of mammoth replica to test their theory.
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