Slinging.org Forum - How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage ?

Thearos Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Take that Posts: 3427	Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage Reply #45 - Sep 17^th, 2012 at 3:27pm Add the sling bullets (clay) at Hamoukar. About 3500 BC. http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/07/070116.hamoukar.shtml
Back to top	IP Logged

Mauro Fiorentini

Forum Moderation

Offline

Forge your future with
the hammer of your mind!

Posts: 3444
Ancona, Italy.
Gender: male

Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage
Reply #46 - Sep 22^nd, 2012 at 1:06pm

Bill Skinner's and Thearos's evidences added

1 - picture at Catal Hayuk -

7500 b.C.

2 - clay bullets from Villaggio Scaramella, both spherical and biconical (Southern Italy, Masseria La Quercia culture) -

5000 b.C.

(1)
3 - clay bullets from Hamoukar -

3500 b.C.

4 - clay bullets from Mesopotamia -

2500 b.C.

5 - Tutankhamon's sling and representation on a Mycenean rhyton -

1400 b.C.

6 - sling and biconical bullets from Lovelock Cave -

1200 b.C.

7 - Cortalloid sling -

1000 b.C.

8 - Novilara's stele (if we want to stop before the Roman era)-

650 b.C.

(2)

(1) reference: A. M. Radmilli, Guida della preistoria Italiana, Sansoni, Florence 1975.
(2) references: V.A., Eroi e regine, De Luca, Rome 2001; V.A., Potere e splendore, "L'Erma" di Bretschneider, Turin 2008.

Greetings,
Mauro.

Back to top

Like!

https://www.facebook.com/Arte-Picena-238289793027749/timeline/
Greetings,
Mauro.

Mauro Fiorentini - 339-525

IP Logged

JDills39 Novicius Offline Slinging Rocks! Posts: 2	Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage Reply #47 - Sep 25^th, 2012 at 5:30pm This is my favourite representation of slingers, orthostat relief from Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, depicting the battle of Lachish in 701 B.C.E.: http://www.artres.com/C.aspx?VP3=ViewBox_VPage&VBID=2UN365GDH2VQ&IT=ZoomImageTem...
Back to top	IP Logged

jlasud

Interfector Viris Spurii

Offline

Programming stones

Posts: 2358
Transilvania
Gender: male

Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage
Reply #48 - Sep 28^th, 2012 at 1:57am

Many have seen this video,but regarding the topic,it has a very interesting point.
Not well documented,but it could be found at where were these mammoth killing sites and how old are they dated,but i guess they're much older than the Catal Huyuk clay ammo.
At 2:40 it has a picture,and is mentioning 5cm "cooking stones"
Frickin archeologist probably thought they're too big to be sling stones and they used slingshots with rubber band and pebbles. JK Grin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaIT9HcnVqg&feature=related
It's written on the pic:Archeology Laboratory Center for Western studies,Augustana collage,Dr.Adrien Hannus.

Back to top

Respect existance or expect resistance!

IP Logged

Thearos Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Take that Posts: 3427	Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage Reply #49 - Sep 28^th, 2012 at 4:45am How about in e.g. pre-Columbian America ? What's the evidence ?
Back to top	IP Logged

Thearos

Interfector Viris Spurii

Offline

Take that

Posts: 3427

Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage
Reply #50 - Sep 28^th, 2012 at 5:05am

Some more Neolithic evidence:

-Sesklo, Thessaly (Greece)-- clay sling bullets. Say ca. 6000 BC. (but in fact quite widespread on Neolithic sites). Dated by stratigraphy and carbon dating.

Source: Childe, V. G. 1951. "The Significance of the Sling for Greek Prehistory," in Studies Presented to David Moore Robinson on His Seventieth Birth day 1-5

-Neolithic near-east: "ammo dumps" of sling bullets (clay). Umm Dabaghiyah and at Tel Sabi Abyad
Source: Kirkbride, D. 1982. "Umm Dabaghi yah," in Fifty Years of Mesopotamian Discovery: The Work of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1932 1982; Akkermans, P. M. M. G. 1993. Villages in the Steppe: Later Neolithic Settle ment and Subsistence in the Balikh Valley, Northern Syria, Ann Arbor.

-Similar sites in Balkans, Neolithic.
Source: J. Chapman lists, in his article in J., and A. F. Harding, eds. 1999. Ancient Warfare: Archaeological perspectives (1999).

-- all these references (which I haven't checked) from C. Runnels et al, "Warfare in Neolithic Thessaly", Hesperia 2009.

-- so: good, widespread archaeological evidence for sling usage in the Neolithic period (say 7000-4000 BC) in the Old World, from the Balksns to Syria, in the form of specialized biconical bullets, made of sunbaked, heavy clay.

What is the correct hypothesis here ? That the sling is developed in the Neolithic period, with clay bullets produced soon after the invention of the sling, or that the sling bullets are a refinement invented for a much older weapons, used in the Palaeolithic already ?

Back to top

IP Logged

Curious Aardvark

Forum Moderation

Offline

Taller than the average
Dwarf

Posts: 13965
Midlands England
Gender: male

Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage
Reply #51 - Sep 29^th, 2012 at 8:42am

Quote:

or that the sling bullets are a refinement invented for a much older weapons, used in the Palaeolithic already ?

Hmm, any idea what ? Can't think of any other way of throwing a glande hard enough for the shape to be of relevance that could be simpler or older than a sling.

I would have thought any other method of throwing would be biased towards spherical ammunition.

Back to top

Do All things with Honour and Generosity: Regret Nothing, Envy None, Apologise Seldom and Bow your head to No One - works for me

IP Logged

Bill Skinner

Forum Moderation

Offline

Slinging Rocks!

Posts: 3292

Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage
Reply #52 - Sep 29^th, 2012 at 1:35pm

Thearos: I don't think it can be proven unless an actual sling is recovered in context. Even if stones were found embedded in the skull of a woolly mammoth, they're not be proof, it may be strongly suspected that it would take a sling to do that damage but that still would only be a theory. It could also have happened when the mammoth fell over. I thought that was an interesting video but it is all conjecture, it's possible but it has no hard evidence supporting or disproving it.

Back to top

IP Logged

jlasud

Interfector Viris Spurii

Offline

Programming stones

Posts: 2358
Transilvania
Gender: male

Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage
Reply #53 - Sep 29^th, 2012 at 2:03pm

Well,if in multiple mammoth kill sites they find such stone,which i don't know,but i guess there could be..than it might suggest that they're probably sling stones. For boiling mammoth on site,they would have used much bigger stones,i SUPPOSE. It may not be a hard evidence,for every day people ,but a slinger would know if those round 5cm diam. stones are sling stones or not Wink

Back to top

Respect existance or expect resistance!

IP Logged

Thearos

Interfector Viris Spurii

Offline

Take that

Posts: 3427

Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage
Reply #54 - Sep 29^th, 2012 at 3:42pm

Curious Aardvark wrote on Sep 29^th, 2012 at 8:42am:

Quote:

or that the sling bullets are a refinement invented for a much older weapons, used in the Palaeolithic already ?

Hmm, any idea what ? Can't think of any other way of throwing a glande hard enough for the shape to be of relevance that could be simpler or older than a sling.

I would have thought any other method of throwing would be biased towards spherical ammunition.

I wrote unclearly. I meant that the neolithic clay sling bullets obviously show that the sling was used in the Neolithic period (obviously), but also that (also obviously) the sling could have been a lot older (the "older weapon" was what i wrote to say "the sling used much earlier).

Back to top

IP Logged

David Morningstar

Slinging.org Moderator

Offline

Slinging Rocks!

Posts: 3515
UK

Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage
Reply #55 - Oct 2^nd, 2012 at 2:14pm

From 'Slings and sling stones, the forgotten weapons of Oceania and the Americas' page 98

"Biconical/bipointed ovoid stone and clay artefacts comparable to Pacific island sling stones have been found from southern California north to the Columbia river... they conservatively date to 8000 YA and quite possibly to 13,000 YA at the Mount Hebron and Borax Lake sites"

It goes on to say,

"Generally these artefacts disappear from the archaeological record between 2500 and 3000 YA"

This is about the same time as the bow made its appearance, displacing the atlatl. I hypothesize an atlatl and sling weapon complex using manufactured sling stones, which was replaced by a primarily bow-using complex with the sling relegated to secondary use with natural stones or clay ammo, retained mostly for its cheapness and ease of carry.

Back to top

IP Logged

Masiakasaurus Forum Moderation Offline mah-SEE-a-kah-SOR-us Posts: 6069 Alabama, USA Gender:	Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage Reply #56 - Oct 8^th, 2012 at 4:23pm So about 12,800 BC to 7,800 BC for the Americas. Pretty old.
Back to top	Pikåru wrote on Nov 19^th, 2013 at 6:59pm: Massi - WTF? It's called a sling. You use it to throw rocks farther and faster than you could otherwise. That's all. ~Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily avialable, they will create their own problems.~ IP Logged

Brett

Descens

Offline

Posts: 163
St Louis
Gender: male

Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage
Reply #57 - Oct 10^th, 2012 at 1:06pm

How about this question: What's the earliest evidence of cordage? Cordage is a prerequisite for a sling. Therefore slings cannot exist prior to cordage. Do any of you smart types out there know our first evidence for cordage? Wikipedia says 28,000 years ago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordage) ; This would be a "can't be before this" point in time for slings.

I was VERY impressed with all the thought about how herding and slinging naturally fit together. I think one key value of a sling as a shepherd in a land with predators would be to do "recon by fire" at range - something you can't do with any other weapon system. Arrows and Atlatls wold get lost, thrown stones don't have the range. I think I'd tend to lob a few rocks into suspicious looking bushes from time to time just on the off chance I might scare a predator. Heck, even I'm accurate enough to do that. The sling allows you a kind of carefree, no-cost interaction with your extended environment that no other weapon affords. it would, in fact, be more a tool than a weapon in this sense.

Back to top

IP Logged

Masiakasaurus

Forum Moderation

Offline

mah-SEE-a-kah-SOR-us

Posts: 6069
Alabama, USA
Gender: male

Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage
Reply #58 - Oct 10^th, 2012 at 6:26pm

Archaeology and anthropology don't work like that. Our earliest evidence of cordage could be several thousand years after it's invention, but no samples were preserved well enough from the first couple thousand years. There is no definite point in human history that slinging or cordage can't have happened before, despite cordage being a prerequisite for slings.

Back to top

Pikåru wrote on Nov 19^th, 2013 at 6:59pm:

Massi - WTF? It's called a sling. You use it to throw rocks farther and faster than you could otherwise. That's all.
~Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily avialable, they will create their own problems.~

IP Logged

jlasud Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Programming stones Posts: 2358 Transilvania Gender:	Re: How old is the oldest evidence of sling usage Reply #59 - Oct 11^th, 2012 at 1:27am That's the thing with all that Loooong time things,they auto recycle. Our today's stuff will be easy to find even 100.000 years from now
Back to top	Respect existance or expect resistance! IP Logged