Makes sense, use the prey’s weight and momentum to do the hard work, rather than the relativly feable arm of a much smaller creature!
Many people have a silly idea in their heads that stone-age humans could not be as innovative and smart as we can because their technology was less advanced than ours.
They also look at an expertly-knapped spearhead like the ones in the thumbnail and think they could do that with a couple of rocks they find in their backyard.
These ancestors of ours were smart, they were creative thinkers, they made stone tools at an expert level that the average person today could not even hope to replicate. I love finding out new ways they were able to innovate.
Modern society has existed in a flash on an evolutionary timescale, it’s likely that our ancient ancestors were exactly as “smart” as we are
I always pictured mammoths being more docile: disinclined to charge. Didn’t realize they could be more of a wooly bully.
I did that thing where I lied on the internet. The preamble was there purely as a setup for the greatest joke of all time.
Pikes were used much the same way right? Surprised I never put the two together, ancient humans weren’t stupid so of course they’d realize that was a better way of causing harm than just throwing it. Not to mention their use of leverage in weapons like the Atlatl. No clue on the timespan of these things but I do find this stuff interesting.
I’m sure so much of our history is more or less completely unknowable simply because the remains all degraded quickly.
How many things made out of wood that simply rotted away, or burned or any one of a thousand things.
Stone tools were a game changer in every sense.
I would posit string being the real game changer. How do you think they got the stone on the end of a stick?
Honest answer, usually animal sinew, or certain grasses could be used as well. The nice thing with string, once it was figured out was you could make as much as you could, and make it as long as you wanted.
I would be surprised if they didn’t use pitfall traps with spikes. That’s how I would take down an elephant
It was the first Olympic sport…run from.the Mammoth
