Yes… I can see your logic. However, if you were a neolithic hunter and you’ve killed say, 300 deer so far in your life. By that time you would have likely shot deer in nearly every part of their bodies and likely noticed where to shoot in order to kill it quickly. This doesn’t mean that you understand that the heart was a vital organ to hit. but merely that the upper chest region of a deer is the best place to land a shot to kill your meal in the least amount of time.
I also think the depth of the shots might be an issue and might have only punctured the lungs and not the heart. That could also explain why the deer was shot more times than the others depicted in the picture.
While I have no way of confirming nor denying the accuracy of the wall painting, I think we shouldn’t be quick to write them off as silly nonsense. It was likely that this painting was used to tell a story of a particular hunt or to teach a lesson to hunters about how to kill deer. We’ll never know the true meaning, but it was likely more than just nonsense.
@Amygdala They do not need to know anatony they could have use experience and observation. After thousands of years of hunting they should know where the most effective killing area where. Moreover they will open the deer to eat it and could compare the wound between animals that died very qucikly and the one which last longer.
Never underestimate the power of experience. It was still broadly use just 100 years ago by farmers (before mechanisation).
Do not overestimate the use of scientific method in the early days of mankind. For roughly 1400 years for example it was widely accepted for the left ventricle of the heart to pump blood to the upper organs such as the brain, and the right ventricle to the inferior organs such as the stomach.
And that is just one of the many ludicrous concepts applied back in the earlier days of mankind.
So I have my doubts any form of scientific method, any true dissection and assasment of what killed the deer would have been in place. Beyond the obvious of shooting several arrows in the front bringing more success than doing so in the back.
About the cave painting, I do not know the history of the one you quote but there is a cave in France call “Grotte Chauvet” : Chauvet Cave - Wikipedia. It is very old (35K BC - 28K BC) and the painting (wonderful by the way) seems to had be done by only one man. Why he did it is of course not know but it could be such an wonderful artist who need to creat thing.
This cave change the view we had in art history. Because it is very old and more complex than some caves that came long after the art historians realize that only technics evolve and talent was alway there.
very famous, and yes very beautiful. I was considering using it as the print on my credit card at one point. Then I went through a bout of German expressionism and decided to go with the Large Blue Horse by Franz Marc… regret fills my pockets every day lol.
@Amygdala It is not science or scientific method. They do not performe proper dissection. They made simple deduction. It is very different from science. They do not want to unterstand just know what is working and what is not.
It more like chinese medecine. There is no science there, just knowledge and experience over thousands of years. There is a layer of philosophical explaination of the top and that all. And it is effective (not like modern medecine of course) but still. Medecinal follow the same path.
I mean, I wouldn’t think they would care at the point of death about what lead to the death of the deer, only that the thing was dead. So, I doubt any autopsy was practiced. They possibly took out the heart and organs to gain the deer’s power as was observed by the Roman’s in some nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples. But, complex knowledge of the deer’s anatomy was useless to them beyond sustenance and ritual.
Let’s just agree to disagree. From a modern day stance the deduction of an arrow to the heart being deadly is a logical one. But we’re talking civiluzations still predating the classic civilizations that believed disease was no more than divine intervention, to be treated by spells, prayers and excorcist styled approaches.
Ancient times in which practises such as trepanning were considered to be beneficial.
So no, it’s going to require some solid evidence for mento accept that they truly knew to aim for the heart to kill.
Just about all later understanding of physiology points to these people having been clueless, and merely having done shots in the dark.
we never said that. At least I didn’t. I said that if you shoot enough deer enough times then you would gradually start to notice the easiest way to take them down is with an arrow to the upper chest. It’s as simple as the ancients noticing that harming sick and injured people was counter productive to saving them, hence the Hippocratic oath.
Eh, in Europe infantry has almost always been king, not archers. There have been a few armies (such as the English during the 1300’s) that relied heavily on archery, but they where the exception rather than the rule. Meanwhile in the Middle East and on the Steppes the bow was the primary weapon around which armies where build. Yes the musket and arquebus where fantastic (especially once the bayonet enabled European armies to merge infantry and archers into the same role), I was just pointing out though that as late as the 19th century the bow was still being used as a battlefield weapon (unless you though I meant the British where using it in India? I of course meant the people opposing the British where on occasion noted to use bows and arrows still).
hastag major sidetrack (if I actually use a # apparently it makes it a headline who knew?)
As for military castes, I’d argue the opposite. Fully professional armies tend to be the province of very highly developed societies, the professional legionaries came after the citizen-soldier legionaries. It requires a state that can support a portion of it that does nothing besides fight. Unless I am completely missing what you mean by a military caste?
There is evidence that Sargon the Great had a standing army of 5200 men in the mid 3rd millennium BC. Although many dispute this as being either an overstatement or a misunderstanding. Regardless, in ancient Sumer, there was a military caste of sorts which was led by the Lugal in times of crisis. Although there were significant levies, it seems as if in times of great conflict, the Lugal’s would employ a proto standing army that would probably be used as unemployment relief to fix canals and raid rival cities and their lands.
True but, compared to the Neolithic, Bronze Age Akkadia is already a pretty advanced society. Once you can create cities and have specialisation of labour (for example you can support scribes and potters) you can support a military caste, let alone once you create a system powerful enough to exert it’s influence over other cities.
Well, you could just do what Rome did and use citizen-legions (or earlier, Hoplites) to conquer the Samnites and other Italic and Latin tribes without the need of a specialized standing army. However, the Sumerian’s found that they were in a conflict so frequently as to need a standing army… This suggests to me that standing armies are only beneficial to a state when they have met all the prerequisite you mentioned AND are extremely expansionistic in their diplomacy - far beyond just one or two cities. So, the creation of any kind of standing army in the bronze age portion of the game should come in the very late game if at all.
I just want to give a last exemple : iron/steel working. The scientific explaination of steel require a huge scientific knowlegde (atomic, cristographic, material physic etc…). People in iron age do not have any of that knowledge and yet they made steel (iron + carbon) weapons. Not perfect of course but correct and they setup a complex process for iron ore.
What I want to say is you don’t need to understand how thing work to use them. And when you see the technic of stone knapping like this one : Levallois technique - Wikipedia, I doubt that people in paleolithic time whould not have figure where to hit ( I think they had severals target spots according to the animal orientation) in order to kill quickly. They did not need to know that it was an heartshot (or any other parts)
Anyway that my last comment on this subject, promise
Same reponse at the same time !
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