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The Use of Wooden Clubs and Throwing Sticks among Recent Foragers : Cross-Cultural Survey and Implications for Research on Prehistoric Weaponry - PubMed

The Use of Wooden Clubs and Throwing Sticks among Recent Foragers : Cross-Cultural Survey and Implications for Research on Prehistoric Weaponry

Václav Hrnčíř. Hum Nat. 2023 Mar.

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 cross-cultural 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; Throwing sticks; Weapons; Wooden clubs.

© 2023. The Author(s).

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Conflict of interest statement

The author has no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1

Global distribution of 57 foraging societies in the sample. Symbols indicate the documented use of clubs and throwing sticks (including non-wooden and composite weapons) for hunting and violence

Fig. 2
Fig. 2

Five main activities for which wooden clubs (contact) and throwing sticks (projectile) were reported to have been used as a primary or secondary weapon (n = 57 societies)

Fig. 3
Fig. 3

The proportion of societies in which wooden clubs (contact) and throwing sticks (projectile) were reported to have been used for hunting (i.e., catching and killing) or only for finishing off prey caught by other means. Divided by four main activities (n = 57 societies)

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