Thanks so much for this summary and for a wonderful newsletter in general. My background is in general biology. Your writings open up a whole new world to me.
Aside: Do you happen to know if someone at a dig site around Y2K released an ancient demon from a jar that was supposed to stay sealed for all eternity? Because it seems like everyone has lost their ever-loving minds.
Can't confirm the Y2K demon, there are indeed more mysteries... but I'm very happy you enjoy the newsletter, it makes it all worthwhile that people read it and get something from it
It is a humbling thought, imagining even ten thousand years of early hominid existence. It is tempting to paint with a broad brush, to use a cliche, and imagine a static series of isolated micro-societies living short and unimaginitive lives.
But this also seems impossible. Ethnic groups must've rose, migrated, warred and fell. Religions too had their day in the sun, only to fade into little more than a will-'o-'the-wisp, a forgotten fragment buried in our subconscious.
Every time I read an article such as this I get that feeling, that vastness, the sensation of the sublime.
> Around 120,000 flint tools and animal bones have been painstakingly recovered
How sharp and durable are flint tools? We tend to assume that later materials are always superior, even though that isn't always the case (compare bronze vs low-carbon iron). Clearly flint is brittle and compares poorly to metal for things like swords, but if we're just considering knives or arrowheads, would flint really be at a significant disadvantage?
It has pros and cons - it is far more brittle and dulls v easily, but a fresh flint or obsidian blade is *extremely* sharp, obsidian can be used as a scalpel replacement in modern surgery.
You have to adjust your mindset when thinking about stone tools. Metal has such longevity that we think about prized knives or tools, but stone tools were v expedient and easily discardable. It's the core, where you knap a tool from, that is the crucial element. If you carry around several cores, even small ones, then you can instantly knap a tool and shape it to your needs then and there.
The flipside of that is where flint is limited, it is obvious in the record where certain geographies lack good stone, and flint tools were reused, resharpened, reshaped.
Thanks for an excellent, well written summary. I was casually describing the same stuff - quite briefly and at the limit of my skimpy awareness - to my wife yesterday. Woke up this AM and stumbled over this. Well done and perfect timing! I couldn’t tell her much but don’t think I made any glaring mistakes.
Thank you, glad to be of service. If you've got the basic outline and chronology down then you're doing better than most, and its v useful since you can hang new information on that skeleton so to speak
Thanks so much for this summary and for a wonderful newsletter in general. My background is in general biology. Your writings open up a whole new world to me.
Aside: Do you happen to know if someone at a dig site around Y2K released an ancient demon from a jar that was supposed to stay sealed for all eternity? Because it seems like everyone has lost their ever-loving minds.
Can't confirm the Y2K demon, there are indeed more mysteries... but I'm very happy you enjoy the newsletter, it makes it all worthwhile that people read it and get something from it
Apropos of that I just got a letter from Sallust; it was lost in the mail for a few centuries but... he says people have always been like this. Sorry.
I quite enjoyed The Making of the Middle Sea by Cyprian Broodbank on this subject
More true tales from a gifted researcher and visionary of the quest for "original" human nature. Thanks!
It is a humbling thought, imagining even ten thousand years of early hominid existence. It is tempting to paint with a broad brush, to use a cliche, and imagine a static series of isolated micro-societies living short and unimaginitive lives.
But this also seems impossible. Ethnic groups must've rose, migrated, warred and fell. Religions too had their day in the sun, only to fade into little more than a will-'o-'the-wisp, a forgotten fragment buried in our subconscious.
Every time I read an article such as this I get that feeling, that vastness, the sensation of the sublime.
Thank you for writing it.
> Around 120,000 flint tools and animal bones have been painstakingly recovered
How sharp and durable are flint tools? We tend to assume that later materials are always superior, even though that isn't always the case (compare bronze vs low-carbon iron). Clearly flint is brittle and compares poorly to metal for things like swords, but if we're just considering knives or arrowheads, would flint really be at a significant disadvantage?
It has pros and cons - it is far more brittle and dulls v easily, but a fresh flint or obsidian blade is *extremely* sharp, obsidian can be used as a scalpel replacement in modern surgery.
You have to adjust your mindset when thinking about stone tools. Metal has such longevity that we think about prized knives or tools, but stone tools were v expedient and easily discardable. It's the core, where you knap a tool from, that is the crucial element. If you carry around several cores, even small ones, then you can instantly knap a tool and shape it to your needs then and there.
The flipside of that is where flint is limited, it is obvious in the record where certain geographies lack good stone, and flint tools were reused, resharpened, reshaped.
Thanks for an excellent, well written summary. I was casually describing the same stuff - quite briefly and at the limit of my skimpy awareness - to my wife yesterday. Woke up this AM and stumbled over this. Well done and perfect timing! I couldn’t tell her much but don’t think I made any glaring mistakes.
Thank you, glad to be of service. If you've got the basic outline and chronology down then you're doing better than most, and its v useful since you can hang new information on that skeleton so to speak