The Use of Wooden Clubs and Throwing Sticks among Recent Foragers

Human Nature (2023) 34:122–152 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-023-09445-3 The Use of Wooden Clubs and Throwing Sticks among Recent Foragers Cross-Cultural Survey and Implications for Research on Prehistoric Weaponry Václav Hrnčíř1,2 Accepted: 22 February 2023 / Published online: 29 March 2023 © The Author(s) 2023 Abstract There is a popular idea that archaic humans commonly used wooden clubs as their weapons. This is not based on archaeological finds, which are minimal from the Pleistocene, but rather on a few ethnographic analogies and the association of these weapons with simple technology. This article presents the first quantitative crosscultural analysis of the use of wooden clubs and throwing sticks for hunting and violence among foragers. Using a sample of 57 recent hunting-gathering societies from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, it is shown that the majority used clubs for violence (86%) and/or hunting (74%). Whereas in hunting and fishing the club usually served only as a secondary tool, 33% of societies used the club as one of their main fighting weapons. The use of throwing sticks was less frequent among the societies surveyed (12% for violence, 14% for hunting). Based on these results and other evidence, it is argued that the use of clubs by early humans was highly probable, at least in the simplest form of a crude stick. The great variation in the forms and use of clubs and throwing sticks among recent hunter-gatherers, however, indicates that they are not standardized weapons and that similar variation may have existed in the past. Many such prehistoric weapons may therefore have been quite sophisticated, multifunctional, and carried strong symbolic meaning. Keywords Comparative ethnology · Hunter-gatherers · Pleistocene archaeology · Weapons · Wooden clubs · Throwing sticks * Václav Hrnčíř 1 Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany 2 Institute of Archaeology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic 13 Human Nature (2023) 34:122–152 123 Archaic humans, such as early Homo sapiens or Homo neanderthalensis, are often portrayed in popular culture as stereotypical cavemen dwelling in caves, wearing animal skins, and wielding large wooden clubs.1 The aim of this paper is to discuss the latter attribute. Could the wooden club really have been a common Pleistocene weapon or is it a myth? What practical use could it have had? And how sophisticated a form and meaning could it take? In order to answer these questions, I conducted quantitative cross-cultural analysis of the use of wooden clubs for hunting and violence among recent foragers. Although clubs can be made of different materials (e.g., wood, bone, antler, stone, metal) and be composed of several parts (e.g., a mace with the head attached to a shaft), this article focuses primarily on the simplest type—the one-piece all-wooden club. I expanded my research to include throwing sticks—in other words, projectiles made of one or several wood pieces that are launched by hand to hit a target in the manner of a blunt weapon (Bordes, 2014, 2020). In theory, these weapons are different in shape and function. However, in reality, some clubs were also used as projectiles, whereas some throwing sticks may serve in part as contact weapons (Bordes, 2014; Davidson, 1936). Moreover, both weapons share some overlapping characteristics, and sometimes it is hard to discriminate between them and to say definitely where the club ends and the throwing stick begins (Basedow, 1913:300). The cross-cultural survey is supplemented by a review of the use of sticks and clubs by modern nonhuman primates. Finally, I discuss the practical use of clubs and throwing sticks, especially in comparison with other weapon systems. Archaeological Evidence of Wooden Clubs and Throwing Sticks The first argument against the existence of clubs in the Pleistocene is their near absence in the archaeological record (e.g., Gamble, 2001:6; Stoczkowski, 2002:79). Unlike wooden spears and lances (e.g., Oakley et al., 1977; Schoch et al., 2015; Thieme & Veil, 1985), only one club-like weapon from the Paleolithic period has been found. A short, heavy piece of wood dated to the Acheulean period and interpreted as a throwing club or mallet was discovered at the site of Kalambo Falls, Zambia (Clark, 2001:484). Mesolithic findings are also rare. Exceptions are two wooden clubs from Holmegaard Moor, Denmark, dated to around 6,500–6,000 BC (Brøndsted, 1960:72). More evidence comes from later periods, especially Neolithic and Bronze Age moorland, lakeshore, and riverside settlements. In total, about 40 wooden clubs have been discovered across 19 sites in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and England (Strambowski, 2015). Later use of clubs is proved 1 Since the end of the nineteenth century, the archetype of the caveman with a club has appeared in literature (e.g., Stanley Waterloo’s The Story of Ab from 1897, Jean M. Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear from 1980), comic book series (e.g., Alley Oop since 1932, Vo’houna since 2002), cartoon series (e.g., The Flintstones since 1960, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels since 1977), movies (e.g., Quest for Fire from 1981, RRRrrrr!!! from 2004), computer games (Prehistorik from 1991, Caveman Tales from 2020), toys (e.g., LEGO Caveman & Cavewoman from 2017, Cave Club doll series by Mattel from 2020), etc. See also Laskow (2015). 13 124 Human Nature (2023) 34:122–152 by findings from late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age lake settlements in Poland, as well as from German and Danish sites dated to the first millennium BC (Kontny, 2015). Non-European finds include the throwing club or knobkerrie from Later Stone Age Namibia (Clark & Walton, 1962; Wadley, 2012); clubs, throwing sticks, and boomerangs from ancient Egypt (Reeves, 2007:175–76; Pitt-Rivers, 1883); and two wooden fish clubs from prehistoric Oregon (Minor & Nelson, 2004). Finds of throwing sticks and boomerangs are older, but Pleistocene finds are also rare. Two 300,000-year-old double-pointed wooden sticks possibly used as throwing sticks were discovered in Schöningen, Germany (Conard et al., 2020; Thieme, 1997). Another, albeit non-wooden, specimen made of a mammoth tusk comes from an Upper Pleistocene site (23,000 BP) in south Poland (Valde-Nowak et al., 1987). The oldest Australian boomerangs known from Wyrie Swamp are dated to the early Holocene, 10,200–8,900 BP (Luebbers, 1975), although Australia’s boomerang stencil rock art is several thousand years older (Finch et al., 2021). Similarly old (9,000 BP) is a portion of a nonreturning oak boomerang found at Little Salt Spring, Florida (Clausen et al., 1979). (For an overview of finds from later periods, see Bordes, 2014:6–13.) Although ethnographic literature shows that wooden clubs were commonly used in warfare (see below), only two specimens have been recovered in the direct context of a mili (...truncated)