Club-Wielding Ancestors: Myth or Reality?
sapiens.org
sapiens.org
IIRC in a video about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana the video claimed that rifle gave a x10 advantage (that was not enough for the British in that battle). Honor is nice, but I'd take x10 every time.
My understanding is that the "honor" thing is a useful proxy for a time when ranged combat could not generally be decisive - as you would not expect ranged fighting to be able to force an enemy to surrender/withdraw/just all die. In these scenarios (and if you're not a society of mounted horse archers...), you -cannot- rely on ranged combat to enable your tribe/clan/fief/kingdom to actually decide outcomes.
Therefore you have to incentize your soldiers and especially your leaders to actually be compelled to undertake, and be good at close combat, because if you're not good at that, you're not going to get get what you want (once again, unless you happen to be mounted horse archers).
It's only really with the development of breach loaded firearms could you reasonably expect to be able to keep an attacking enemy at bay through firepower alone (and even then it's not guaranteed as Isandlwana shows).
In the early years of the gun it was expected you fire once and then rush into battle with a sword. A gun was still better than a bow though as it is a lot easier to aim a gun, even though the gun was not very accurate. As guns got faster to reload and more accurate they slowly took over war, but it wasn't until the mid 1800s that a gun was conclusively better than someone training in a bow or sword, and it wasn't until the 1900s that battle tactics adjusted to that reality.
Also, Isandlwana in 1879 is AFAIK the last significant battle where a force whose main weapon was guns, was defeated by a force largely without them. (2)
See also, a few years later in 1884, the Maxim gun (3) which tilted the odds even further.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impi#Ascent_and_innovations_of...
2) "The Battle of Isandlwana remains the British Army’s worst-ever defeat against a native enemy whose military weaponry was not nearly as technologically advanced as their own." https://explorethearchive.com/battle-of-isandlwana
3) "the first fully automatic machine gun"" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_gun
"Thank the Lord that we have got
The Gatling gun
And they have not!"
"Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not"
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/355429-whatever-happens-we-...
The importance of public displays of honor is a cultural distinction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_honor_(Southern_Uni...
I wonder if more people have seen the above scene as have seen the original. If not, I wonder if and when the numbers will cross. My kids have seen both, but they probably don't remember seeing the original as they were quite young. I try to force nostalgia film and television on them, but it's hit or miss, and now that they can fight back they won't let me play Indiana Jones films, but are okay with IASIP. (I'd prefer Indiana Jones as it requires less censoring.)
The good thing about Indiana Jones is that, because it's set in the past, it doesn't look as dated as an 1981 movie that actually played in 1981 looks. Ok, you can probably guess that it's old if you compare the way Harrison Ford looked then to the way he looks now, but other than that...
And of those, how many are dead because they forgot to bring their gun to the swordfight?
I think I agree, but when I have to rationalize it, I can't really say why!
I only come up with vague things like:
- being made to look like in the past, the visual language is a caricature of the past. This caricature of the 30s has not changed much for us between 1980s and present time.
- which leads to... our present is not as clear as in hindsight (or we haven't formed a caricature of it yet) while it happens
- being set in the past, some of the artefacts of being shot on film, don't stick out as much (in fact, these artefacts are often emulated in modern productions to signal "the past")
- ... as opposed to films set in the future, there are fewer pitfalls
Granted, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia isn't as popular, and not everyone who has seen one IASIP episode will have seen them all, but the target audience is similar.
The IASIP scene is no where nearly as viral as the Indiana Jones scene anyway. The Indiana Jones clip has higher production value, there’s no talking, it’s shorter, there’s excitement, and a good payoff at the end of it, it has all the ingredients for it to spread across the world no matter what language you speak. It’s timeless, and always relevant.
IASIP drags on, and focuses on school shooters which only resonates with American audiences. They also basically “explain” the entire joke, vs Indiana Jones which simply illustrates it very well.
The arab sword scene will basically be immortal.
In movie, just before encountering the Arab swordsman Indy fights with his fists quite a few Arabs - and in a few instances it looks like he is going to loose. So discovering at this point that Indy had a firearm all along - and didn't use it even when it appeared to us, the viewers, that he was going to lose - shows us how confident in his abilities he is. And additionally, how aware he is of his own limitations.
The British of course did not admit defeat, they just came back with more men and bigger guns, to displace the Zulus.
An interesting theory...
Given that we developed flint-tipped spears half a million years ago, would cavemen have used clubs in any but the most desperate situations?
Assuming weapon and shield combat, clubs might be able to deliver more power through a shield (staggering or fatiguing the defender) than a spear thrust. The reach advantage of spears are also partially eroded once you consider a shield as well.
I think it's very telling that nearly all of the examples given of "modern" hunter gathers have them using both spear and clubs. I think the reality is that spears would have likely been preferred, but club/maces retaining some utility. In addition, the very fact that clubs had so many disadvantages would make it's use a bit of a status symbol too.
Clubs wouldn’t have damaged pelts, and take less effort to create and maintain. Rather hard to clear underbrush with a stabbing spear.
https://www.joshobrouwers.com/articles/club-heracles-recogni...
Though naturally, the ancients didn't see Heracles as some primitive brute.
https://twitter.com/Arting_2D/status/1499311367060594689/pho...
15 Coming upon the fresh jawbone of an ass, he reached out, grasped it, and with it killed a thousand men.
16 Then Samson said,
“With the jawbone of an ass
I have piled them in a heap;
With the jawbone of an ass
I have slain a thousand men.”
> Combining those lines of evidence, I’m convinced the earliest modern humans likely wielded clubs—probably more often for conflicts than hunting.
> Returning to the game Prehistorik, we can be sure that no human ever clubbed a dinosaur, but past people probably whacked creatures that existed over the past 300,000 years. The wooden club in their hands is not a myth. However, it may have been a much more sophisticated weapon than most people imagine.