The appearance of weaponry - technology designed to kill - is a critical but poorly established threshold in human evolution. It is an important behavioural marker representing evolutionary changes in ecology, cognition, language and social behaviours. While the earliest weapons are often considered to be hand-held and consequently short-ranged, the subsequent appearance of distance weapons is a crucial development. Projectiles are seen as an improvement over contact weapons, and are considered by some to have originated only with our own species in the Middle Stone Age and Upper Palaeolithic. Despite the importance of distance weapons in the emergence of full behavioral modernity, systematic experimentation using trained throwers to evaluate the ballistics of thrown spears during flight and at impact is lacking. This paper addresses this by presenting results from a trial of trained javelin athletes, providing new estimates for key performance parameters. Overlaps in distances and impact energies between hand-thrown spears and spearthrowers are evidenced, and skill emerges as a significant factor in successful use. The results show that distance hunting was likely within the repertoire of hunting strategies of Neanderthals, and the resulting behavioural flexibility closely mirrors that of our own species.

Wooden spears represent the earliest hunting technology in the archaeological record. Their archaeological rarity, likely largely due to preservation bias, has not dampened interest in their function and significance, with a spike in publications relating to their manufacture and use over the last decade (

16Human hunting has been a cornerstone of research in human evolutionary studies,

Abstract

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Humans are selective social learners. In a cultural landscape with many potential models, learners must balance the cost associated with learning from successful models with learning from accessible ones. Using structured interviews, we investigate the model selection biases of Congolese BaYaka adolescent boys learning to hunt with spears (n=24, mage=15.79 years, range: 12-20 years). Results from Social Relations Models suggest that adolescents nominated accessible adult men (closely related kin and neighbors) as preferred spear hunting models. Direct cues for success were not strong predictors for adolescent nomination in the statistical models, despite learners justifying model selection according to teaching and spear hunting skill. Indirect cues including Body Mass Index, age, and cross-domain prestige, were weak predictors for adolescent nomination. We interpret these findings as suggesting that BaYaka spear hunting knowledge is widely shared in the community, with all adult men participating

Teaching likely evolved in humans to facilitate the faithful transmission of complex tasks. As the oldest evidenced hunting technology, spear hunting requires acquiring several complex physical and cognitive competencies. In this study, we used observational and interview data collected among BaYaka foragers (Republic of the Congo) to test the predictions that costlier teaching types would be observed at a greater frequency than less costly teaching in the domain of spear hunting and that teachers would calibrate their teaching to pupil skill level. To observe naturalistic teaching during spear hunting, we invited teacher–pupil groupings to spear hunt while wearing GoPro cameras. We analysed 68 h of footage totalling 519 teaching episodes. Most observed teaching events were costly. Direct instruction was the most frequently observed teaching type. Older pupils received less teaching and more opportunities to lead the spear hunt than their younger counterparts. Teachers did not appear to adjust their teaching to pupil experience, potentially because age was a more easily accessible heuristic for pupil skill than experience. Our study shows that costly teaching is frequently used to transmit complex tasks and that instruction may play a privileged role in the transmission of spear hunting knowledge.

A technological approach to the analysis of wooden artefacts from stone-tool using cultures remains underdeveloped relative to technologies from other materials such as stone and bone. However, in recent years archaeologists have begun to approach wood assemblages in a systematic manner, including macro- and micro-analyses of traces, and conducting experiments to build reference samples on manufacturing, use and taphonomy. However, there is as yet a lack of established nomenclature that would facilitate intra-site comparisons. Therefore, this glossary and associated code is a first step to initiate a synthesis and standardisation of analytical terms for early wood technologies from stone-tool cultures. An agreement and clear definition of terms is useful to avoid confusion and overlaps pertaining to all phases that help us understand the biography of wooded artefacts. This glossary and code relies both on the collective expertise of the authors as well as on existing publications, particularly those reflecting recent systematic analyses and descriptions of wood technologies and traces from stone-tool using cultures. As a work in progress, we hope to collaborate and communicate with others working on archaeological wood, particularly pertaining to assemblages from stone-tool using cultures.