Neck of the woods

“The date when stone-age humans first invented the lethal technology of spears and arrows has been set back many thousands of years with the discovery of small stone blades dating to 71,000 years ago. Archaeologists believe the “bladelets” were used as the sharp tips for arrows or spears and were made by a relatively sophisticated technique involving the heat treatment of stone before shaping the final cutting edges. The fine stone blades were excavated from a prehistoric site called Pinnacle Point on the southern coast of South Africa and are between 6,000 and 11,000 years older than the previous oldest known samples of spear and arrow blades, scientists said. The discovery suggests that the invention of lethal projectile weapons came far earlier in the course of human prehistory than previously realised and that, once invented, the knowledge was passed down the generations, according to a study in Nature led by Curtis Marean of Arizona State University..……………..”

Everybody loves Anthropology, no matter what their major. Well, maybe there are exceptions: some ayatollahs, Wahhabi clerics, Orthodox priests, Salafis, Muslim Brothers, and most U.S. Republican Congressmen, among others.
Do you think they did in those days what they do now? Do you think leading Western cavemen from Europe traveled to the Middle East peddling their axes and stone (obsidian) spears to our leading cavemen of the ruling “Gruntgrunt” tribe? Is it possible that someone who looked like Mr.Cameron, all hairy and clad in animal skin (no underwear of course) walked to the Gulf to sell sharpened stones attached to pieces of wood as well as rock-encrusted clubs as defensive weapons? And what about ‘crowd control’? There was no tear gas in those days, no stun weapons. Did he advise the use of human waste as the second best thing to tear gas? Use of “stink bombs” as opposed to the modern version of crowd control weapons?
Did he advise the leading cave-men that, after bashing their fellow cave–men’s (and cave–women’s) brains with his clubs, they ought to start thinking about considering the possibility of looking into the idea of perhaps allowing them to entertain thoughts of being allowed to tell them that they stink and perhaps ought to dunk themselves in the Gulf waters once in a while.
Fanciful but interesting speculation. No?
mhg
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