Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Weaponry PDF
Preview Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Weaponry
Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series Radu Iovita Katsuhiro Sano Editors Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Weaponry Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Weaponry Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series Edited by Eric Delson Vertebrate Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History New York, NY 10024, USA [email protected] Eric J. Sargis Anthropology, Yale University New Haven, CT 06520, USA [email protected] Focal topics for volumes in the series will include systematic paleontology of all vertebrates (from agnathans to humans), phylogeny reconstruction, functional morphology, Paleolithic archaeology, taphonomy, geochronology, historical bioge- ography, and biostratigraphy. Other fields (e.g., paleoclimatology, paleoecology, ancient DNA, total organismal com- munity structure) may be considered if the volume theme emphasizes paleobiology (or archaeology). Fields such as modeling of physical processes, genetic methodology, nonvertebrates or neontology are out of our scope. Volumes in the series may either be monographic treatments (including unpublished but fully revised dissertations) or edited collections, especially those focusing on problem-oriented issues, with multidisciplinary coverage where possible. Editorial Advisory Board Ross D. E. MacPhee (American Museum of Natural History), Peter Makovicky (The Field Museum), Sally McBrearty (University of Connecticut), Jin Meng (American Museum of Natural History), Tom Plummer (Queens College/CUNY). More information about this series at www.springer.com/series/6978 Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Weaponry Edited by Radu Iovita MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre, Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (RGZM), Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Archäologie, Neuwied, Germany Katsuhiro Sano The University Museum, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan 123 Editors RaduIovita KatsuhiroSano MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre TheUniversity Museum Museum for HumanBehavioural Evolution, TheUniversity of Tokyo Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (RGZM), Tokyo Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut fürArchäologie Japan Neuwied Germany ISSN 1877-9077 ISSN 1877-9085 (electronic) Vertebrate PaleobiologyandPaleoanthropology Series ISBN978-94-017-7601-1 ISBN978-94-017-7602-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-7602-8 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016934928 ©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaDordrecht2016 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialis concerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation,broadcasting,reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. 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CoverIllustration:Photo:MarieSjøvold Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerScience+BusinessMediaB.V.Dordrecht Foreword Each new succeeding generation of researchers draws upon the accumulative knowledge and creative thinking of previous generations but it sometimes takes the concerted efforts of a group of talented researchers working together to completely reinvigorate a subject by introducing fresh approaches to ideas and redefining new directions in research. This impressive volume “Multidisciplinary approaches to the study of Stone Age weaponry” does precisely that and by bringing together a very wide field of specialists with complimentary interests and novel ideas, it presents a significant contribution to the advancement of this subject. Much of the work presented in this volume is totally new and it is a great credit to the energyandefficiencyoftheeditors,RaduIovitaandKatsuhiroSano,thattheyhavemanaged togather together somany papers containing theideas ofleadingspecialists (one hesitates to usetheterm“cutting-edge”)andtomarshaltogethertheresultsinsocomprehensiveamanner. The book is divided into four sections (“experimental applications”, “archaeological appli- cations”, “measures of weapon performance” and “measures of weapon curation”), each of which is self-contained and can be read on its own, but equally and as a whole, reflects the multidisciplinarity and the impressive inter-weaving of new and updated approaches on the subject of Stone Age weaponry. Many of the guiding principles underpinning today’s ideas on Stone Age weaponry lie deeply rootedinthepast scholarshipofnineteenth century antiquarianarchaeologists suchas SirJohnEvans.Asapioneerinthesestudiesheexperimentedinthemanufactureofartefacts out of stone, bone and horn (antler) including stone javelin and arrow heads. However, it is worthrecallingthathetoowasaidedinthisbytheobservationsofanumberofco-researchers includingDr.FerdinandKeller(whowroteaboutthesizeanduseofarrowheadsintheSwiss lake villages), Worthington G. Smith (who undertook some of the earliest refitting studies at Caddington), and F.C.J. Spurrell (who published on refitting artefacts from Stoneham’s Pit, Crayford and also carried out early knapping experiments). Although many of these seminal studies were concerned with processes of manufacture and use, there does not seem to have been much time devoted to experimenting with ancient forms of weaponry. Evans himself fullyacknowledgedtheimportanceofstudyingflintweapons,butrathertookforgrantedthat the size differences reflected different forms of projectile use without investigating their effectiveness much further. In the first edition of “Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain”, published in 1872, he wrote “The variation in size probably arises from some of them having tipped spears to be held in the hand for close encounters, while others may have been attached to lighter shafts, and formed javelins to be thrown at objectsatsomedistance;andthemajorityofthesmallerkindwere,beyonddoubt,theheadsof arrows discharged from bows”. v vi Foreword Further background on the subsequent history and the development of studies into Stone Age weaponry is eloquently summarized by the editors in the preface. But as a minor aside and on a personal note, I would like to add a few words about my own introduction to the subject.WhenChristopherBergmanandIsetupourprojectileexperimentsinNovember1981 (results presented in the following year’s Prehistoric Society Spring Conference in London andpublishedin1982),ouraimwastotesttheefficiencyofmicrolithicpointsasarrowheads. There were few other similar experiments reported at that time but we drew inspiration from studies like John Whitthoft’s 1968 paper on damaged Eskimo stone arrowpoints and Seme- nov’sequallyimportantbookonprehistorictechnology,whichappearedin1964.Christopher was also a member of a highly active group offlintknappers and researchers who were then engaged in similar experiments using bone and flint projectiles, based at the Institute of Archaeology in London. In retrospect, our experiment involving a dead roe deer dangling by its hind legs from a tree in a garden in North Oxford, where I was then living, now seems rather bizarre and unsophisticated. Indeed, the spectacle drew looks of horror and conster- nation from some of the co-habitants of my college accommodation and caused a brief sensation locally. Despite the wholly unnatural positioning of the animal, we tried to be as authentic as possible in other aspects of the experiment in using replicas of microliths and copying their hafting positions from waterlogged Mesolithic examples of arrowshafts with slottedflintpoints.Thedeerwasshotrepeatedlyusingabowofknowndrawstrength(40lbat 26 inches) and itself a facsimile of the famous Holmegaard bow. Besides the well-known impactfracturesthatwerepublishedin1982,theresultstaughtusaseriesofvaluablelessons anditissometimes theunintendedconsequences ofexperiments thataremost instructivebut infrequently reported. At a common-sense level, the experiment revealed that although fletching of the arrows helps stabilize their flight, it made little difference to accuracy over relatively short distances and it could be argued that such additions to arrows were simply unnecessary if the prey were being hunted at close quarters, as is the practice among the KalahariSanforexample.Amoreinterestingobservationwasthatmanyofthepointspassed cleanlythroughtheanimalwithoutincurringobviousdamagetothetipanditbecameclearto us that this must also have happened regularly in the past. In such instances, provided the shafts were undamaged, the arrows could simply be reused and it made us realize that unbroken archaeological specimens may have penetrated the soft tissue but not have struck bone. Our results therefore suggested a more holistic approach would be rewarded by including further research on hafting methodology, use-wear and residue analysis and it is gratifyingtoknowthatsubsequentworkalongtheselinescontinuestobefollowedupinthis excellent volume. So to all existing and future generations of experimenters and researchers, I would like to warmlycommendthisvolumewrittenbysomeofthefinestpractitionersamongstthecurrent generationofscholarsandwhohavedemonstratedthatthesubjectofStone Ageweaponryis still highly relevant and very much to the fore in studies of our human past. Nick R.N.E. Barton Institute of Archaeology University of Oxford Oxford, OX1 2PG, UK References Barton, R. N. E., & Bergman, C. A. (1982). Hunters at Hengistbury: some evidence from experimental archaeology.WorldArchaeology,14,237–248. Bergman,C.A.,&Newcomer,M.H.(1983).Flintarrowheadbreakage:ExamplesfromKsarAkil,Lebanon. JournalofFieldArchaeology,10,238–243. vii Foreword Evans,J.(1872).Theancientstoneimplements,weaponsandornamentsofGreatBritain.London:Longmans, Green&Co. Keller, F. (1866). The lake dwellings of Switzerland and other parts of Europe (1st ed.). Translated and arrangedbyJohnEdwardLee.London:Longmans,GreenandCo. Semenov,S.A.(1964).Prehistorictechnology:Anexperimentalstudyoftheoldesttoolsandartefactsfrom tracesofmanufactureandwear.London:Cory,Adams,&Mackey. Smith, W. G. (1894). Man the primeval savage. His haunts and relics from the hill-tops of Bedfordshire to Blackwall.London:EdwardStanford. Spurrell, F. C. J. (1880). On the implements and chips from the floor of a Palaeolithic workshop. Archae- ologicalJournal,37,294–299. Spurrell, F. C. J. (1884). On some Palaeolithic knapping tools and modes of using them. Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute,13,109–118. Whitthoft,J.(1968).FlintarrowpointsfromtheEskimoofnorthwesternAlaska.Expedition,10,30–37. Preface Twenty Years Since Knecht: New Answers, New Questions and New Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Armatures Although it goes beyond a simple “proceedings volume”, this book is in part the result of a workshop with the same name organized by us in September2011,at the University of Mainz, Germany. Both of us had previously dealt with the question of identifying weapons in the archaeological record using different methodologies (Sano 2009; Iovita 2011), yet we had both also begun new experimental projects aimed at solving some of what we had felt were methodologicalinsufficienciesinexistingprotocols(Iovitaetal.2013,2016;SanoandOba2015; Sanoetal.2016).Itwasinthecontextoftheworkfortheseprojectsthatwebegantorealizehow many researchers around the world were simultaneously working on weapon technologies and tryingtofindwhatrolethesemighthaveplayedinshapingthecourseofhumanevolution.More importantly, we quickly found that many of these researchers were working independently, starting from different premises, but also having different background questions in mind, and representing different scientific traditions and schools. In short, weapons were all of a sudden globally fashionable, and that was and remains a good thing. Yet not everything about a new scientifictrendispositive.Weimmediatelyrealizedthatthesharpincreaseininterestcarriedwith it the potential for duplication on the one hand, and for competition on the other. While com- petition anddebate arehealthyelements of anyscientific enterprise, history has shown that that too much competition at the beginning of a scientific “trend” can lead to a stifling of creativity andanacrimoniousatmosphere,acombinationthatcouldultimatelyhinderrealprogress.Itwas preciselywiththegoalofavoidingtheseproblemsthatMultidisciplinaryApproachestotheStudy of Stone Age Weapons—the workshop (Fig. 1), and, later, the book, were conceived. The decision to elect Heidi Knecht’s (1997) seminal work, Projectile Technology, as a model for ourbook was aconsciousone.As we outline below,Knecht’s volume represented theculminationofadecadeandahalfofintensiveresearch(the1980sandearly1990s)when severaltheoretical,methodologicaland,notleastofall,empirical-archaeologicallinesofwork cametogethertoformasynthesisofthemeaningof[projectile]weaponsinhumanevolution. Morethanfifteenyearslater,webelievewearenowmovingtowardsanothersynthesis,albeit with very different drivers and actors, and it is this Zeitgeist that we hope to have captured. IncontrasttoKnecht’svolume,theresearchpresentedinthisbookisallarchaeological,or at least archaeologically oriented. However, its multidisciplinarity stems from the multidis- ciplinarity of archaeology itself, which, as a historical science, draws from knowledge accu- mulated in other disciplines, including physics and materials science, cognitive and behavioural science, biology, and cultural anthropology. Much like Knecht’s book, this vol- ume unites archaeological perspectives from a variety of time periods and from all five continents with a large assortment of new analytical and experimental studies. ix x Preface Fig. 1 Participants at the 2011 conference on Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Weapons. The names of speakers are indicatedbythenumbersinthesilhouettesbelow
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