94
submitted 1 year ago by sabbah@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] ProcurementCat@feddit.de 11 points 1 year ago

These handaxes are so big it’s difficult to imagine how they could have been easily held and used.

While right now, we aren’t sure why such large tools were being made, or which species of early human were making them, this site offers a chance to answer these exciting questions.

I'd imagine that if you have a dead woolly mammoth with a 10cm layer of fat underneath an elephant-thick skin, it's really hard to cut through all of that to get to the meat. I'd suspect that the heavy weight of those tools made it relatively easy to cut through that, so that would only have to provide a sideways force.

I imagine it like this: You lift this large tool and jam it once into the mammoth's thick skin so that it sticks in it. Gravity is supplying most of the force necessary to cut, and all the human has to do is push and pull to the side to open up the animal to access the meat, which can then be processed with smaller hand held tools.

[-] HerbErtlinger@vlemmy.net 6 points 1 year ago

When I take my dog for a walk, he finds the biggest stick he can, whether or not he can carry it.

When I was in high school I knew a kid that loved Braveheart so much he got a reproduction of the claymore, a sword that was easily ten inches taller than him.

I think some dudes, no matter the species, just like the big pointy stick.

[-] ProcurementCat@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

I think some dudes, no matter the species, just like the big pointy stick.

Yeah, sure. but those guys then get buried with their big pointy stick What we have here is a prehistoric working space, more akin to a construction site, where dozens of people together were cutting up animals and processing them. These giant handaxes are specialized tools for a specific job.

load more comments (6 replies)
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
94 points (99.0% liked)

World News

38719 readers
2663 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS