But what are the oldest spears? Of course, the Stone Age! We were told about this back in the 5th grade of secondary school and, in general, they spoke correctly, but only by and large it is about nothing. The Stone Age was the longest milestone in human history. It was then that there were different subspecies of Нomo saрiens, and is it not interesting to try to find out exactly where, when and who had these very spears at that time far from us? After all, a spear was one of the steps to the heights of civilization, just like a harpoon, a drilled ax, a raft, a sail, a wheel, and so on …
Paleolithic hunter with the oldest spear shape, whose wooden point was burned in a fire. Archaeological Museum, Bonn
Probably many of you have read the novel by the French writer Joseph A. Roni Sr. "The Struggle for Fire", written back in 1909 on the basis of the then knowledge about the life of primitive people. This is a fascinating story about the search for fire, without which the Ulamr tribe (clearly modern people) cannot exist. In 1981, he was filmed, and the quality of the film adaptation is evidenced by the fact that this film was given two awards: "Cesar" and "Oscar". Although personally I am not delighted with him. And there are a lot of blunders in it, and the plot is too simplistic in comparison with the novel.
The movie "The Last Neanderthal" (2010). And the "sticks" could have been taken in a straighter way!
It is important to note that in other novels by J. Ya. Roni on "primitive themes" such as "Vamireh" (1892), "The Cave Lion" (1918) and "Eldar of the Blue River" (1929) - for women, or even simply because "strangers are enemies."
At the same time, the heroes use a solid arsenal of weapons that they constantly carry with them. These are spears with flint tips, and spears - apparently, the same spears, but with a crosshair on the shaft so that the tip does not go very deep into the enemy's body. In any case, this was exactly the structure of the hunting spear in the Middle Ages, but the French writer does not give details of its structure. Further, his heroes use javelins, stone axes, and the strongest of them use clubs - a solid weight with battle clubs from the butt of young oak trees, burned for durability on fire.
It is interesting that the tribes described in the novels of the French writer, although they exist in the same time and space, are at different levels of development, which, however, can be explained by their belonging to different human types. Naturally, this is reflected in their weapons. So, for example, the more "advanced" people from the Wa tribe already use a spear thrower, while all the others are more backward, they do not have this weapon yet! Such, in general, a simple weapon like a sling is not used and is not even mentioned. That is, the author most likely believed that it was invented by man later.
"The Man with the Spear". Petroglyph from Sweden.
But today, the American Jean M. Auel has written a series of novels, the main character of which is made by the primitive girl Eila. It is important to note that Jean Auel was at the excavations in France, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Hungary and Germany, and was engaged in the popular nowadays "serviling": she learned how to make stone tools, build a dwelling from snow, process deer skins and weave grass rugs … In the process of working on the novels, she consulted with anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, ethnographers and specialists in other fields of knowledge in order to show the world of the late Pleistocene in which her heroes lived and acted as faithfully as possible, and it should be noted that she completely succeeded.
But the point of view on the coexistence of primitive races is not at all the same as in the novels of Roni the Elder. Despite all the interspecific differences, primitive people are not at enmity with her, and there are practically no descriptions of bloody fights between them in her novels. Weapons are used only against animals! The attack of a person on a person is a rarity and the lot of completely asocial types, condemned by all tribes.
As for the actual arsenal of her heroes, it may not be as diverse as in the novels of the French writer, but it is more effective. These are bola - several stones with bast tails, tied with a rope, throwing which, the hunter could entangle the legs of long-legged prey; Jean Auel's sling is used by both men and women. Another weapon that the heroine invents and introduces in the novel is the spear-thrower, the use of which made it possible to throw light darts and spears much further than can be done by hand. And - yes, indeed, there is evidence that this weapon was used already in the late Paleolithic. Later, the spear thrower became widespread among the aborigines of Australia, among whom it is known as womera, wommera, wammer, amer, purtanji, in New Guinea and among the coastal peoples of northeast Asia and North America, and even in our Sakhalin among the Nivkhs. The Spaniards encountered a spear-thrower, which the aborigines called "atlatl", during the conquest of Mexico). Usually it was a plank with a stop on one end and two finger hooks or a handle on the other, that is, it was arranged very, very simply.
A stone-tipped spear from the Cape Verde National Park.
But it is important for us in this case what information about all this is given to us by the drawings on the walls of the Paleolithic caves, which are the most real galleries of primitive painting. If we take into account the particularity of certain images according to the principle “what is most important to me, then I paint”, then we can conclude that most of the time primitive people were engaged in obtaining food for themselves. No wonder there are so many drawings with hunting scenes in these caves. Thus, in the Lascaux cave in France, drawings of animals pierced with many darts were discovered; and next to it there are conventional images of spear throwers, which allows us to conclude that all these types of weapons already existed and were used at that time. In the center of this cave, in the so-called apse, in a deep four-meter well, you can see a colorful image of a bison struck by a large spear; his stomach is ripped open and his insides are visible. Next to him lies a man, near whom lies a fragment of a spear and a small rod, decorated with a schematic image of a bird. It is very similar to the horny spear-thrower from the Mas d'Azil cave in the Pyrenees, belonging to the so-called Azilian culture, with the image of a snow partridge near the hook, so we see that ancient people even decorated this weapon! Moreover, this find is by no means an exception. But at the spear thrower found at the Abri Montastruck site, also in the territory of modern France and made from a deer antler about 12 thousand years ago, this hook is made in the form of a jumping horse, so the trend here is quite definite - “the weapon must be decorated”!
By this time, namely in the era of the late Paleolithic, the time of modern humans had ended, the time had come for mass hunting for large animals, followed by the development of strong social ties and internal laws of life, and also an extraordinary flourishing of art, which reached the highest level of 15-10 thousand. years BC NS. By this time, the technique of making tools and weapons had become truly virtuoso. In any case, today we know about 150 types of stone and 20 types of bone tools from that time from the finds of archaeologists. It's just a pity that only a few of them were captured by ancient people on the walls of these caves, so these drawings, unfortunately, will not tell us much. Animals - oh yes, Paleolithic people depicted very often! But themselves and everyday objects - alas, no, and why is so unknown so far, although there are no number of witty hypotheses explaining this.
And these are arrowheads! Moreover, they are chopping, not pointed. Amazing, isn't it? Metal tips of this shape are known, but it turns out that there were also stone ones!
That is, in this case, the images do not tell us a lot, and in order to explain them we will have to compare them with the artifacts of that time discovered by archaeologists. However, we will start again not with the finds as such, but with the fact that we will again turn to the novels of J. Roni Sr. and Jean Auel. Why in the works of the first ancient people are always at enmity, while the "children of the Earth" in Auel still prefer to negotiate? Most likely, it is a matter of the specifics of her current worldview, carried over thousands of years ago. How much this is all "wrong" is evidenced by the finds of archaeologists. For example, even when archaeologist Arthur Leakey discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in Kenya the skull of an ancient man pierced by a sharp stone, one could even then assume that there was no "world under the olives" even in that distant era. And it was clear that a roughly chipped stone in a man's hand (according to various estimates, it is from 800 thousand to 400 thousand years old) could be both a hammer and a chisel, and a scraper, and … a sufficiently effective weapon.
Apparently, the entire history of mankind J. Roni Sr. saw as one continuous confrontation between people of different physical types, which in the same novel "Fight for Fire" are represented by ulamrs, kzams, red dwarfs and people from the Wa tribe. But wasn't all this reflected in various artifacts, and talentedly conveyed in artistic images? Almost all epic heroes, no matter what nation they belong to, constantly come to grips with enemies who embody "absolute evil." At the same time, it is interesting that most of the heroes - at least the most famous among them, are preoccupied with the problem of their own immortality or invulnerability, or their parents or friends take care of it. The hero of the Iliad, Achilles, is made invulnerable by his mother, the goddess, who bathes him for this in the waters of the underground river Styx. Siegfried - the character of "The Song of the Nibelungs" bathes in the blood of a dragon for the same purpose. The exiled hero - the hero of the epic of the Narts becomes invulnerable after his blacksmith father puts him, again in infancy, in a red-hot oven, and holds him by the legs below the knees with pincers. But it is interesting that even then people were wise enough to understand: it is impossible to get absolute invulnerability! The same goddess Thetis holds Achilles by the heel and it is into her that the arrow of the insidious Paris falls. A leaf of wood stuck to Siegfried's back, and there the spear of his enemy stabs. Well, and the magic wheel of Balsag, who learned his secret, acts as an insidious legger of Soslan. After waiting for him to fall asleep, the wheel rolled over his vulnerable spot and … cut off both of his legs below the knees, which made him bleed to death!
That is, this is where the desire of the later knights comes to put on armor impenetrable for any weapon - from our legendary past! However, the main means of defense for a Stone Age man was not armor, which, naturally, he did not know then, but … the distance that did not allow the enemy to approach his victim and deliver a fatal blow. We know from the Bible that Cain rebelled against Abel and killed him, but it does not specify either the method of murder or the distance between the offender and the victim at the time of its commission. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that it was small and Cain either strangled Abel, or killed him with a shepherd's staff, or stabbed him with an ordinary knife. It is also possible that the stone he raised from the ground and hit his victim on the head. In any case, this would not have happened if Abel had had time to escape from him. So, agile legs were just as important a means of defense as armor and shields.
This tip was recently found by a boy in Texas …
The distance between opponents could be bridged with the help of appropriate throwing weapons: stones and javelins. It is known that, for example, the Japanese ashigaru infantrymen had spears up to 6.5 meters long. That is, it was the maximum combat distance at which one warrior could fight another without letting go of his weapon, while a bow allowed one person to hit another at a distance of several tens or even hundreds of meters, not to mention the reach of individual and collective firearms. weapons. And for the latter, even 100 kilometers is not the limit! Thus, it is obvious that the whole history of the armed struggle of people against each other (not to mention hunting for their own food!) Was reduced to the creation of effective means of attack that lengthened their arms and legs and the development of appropriate means of defense against the enemy.
But when did people come up with the idea of creating the first samples of throwing weapons with stone tips? It is clear that they most likely threw the stones themselves at the target, however, how can one determine whether this or that stone was thrown at the target or it simply cracked from time to time. After all, fingerprints have not survived on the stones since then … And when exactly did the ancient people come up with the throwing spears, not the shock spears described by the Neanderthals in Jean Auel's novels?
