Are Chomsticks considered primitive tech?
Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
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Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
#22I’ve found myself infected with a desire to have a machine shop. I don’t exactly know what I’d use it for, but there’s something so cool about making your own stuff. This fellow inherited his grandfather’s machine shop https://youtu.be/hearLttbrLo?si=r2CHxdepmhQ71xJq and used it to make… a pen. https://youtu.be/j27RKTHMLkA?si=f5OPN7ZJ10EBSZa4 And it’s an addiction I didn’t know I had. The gateway drug that led to all…
That’s what Harbor Freight is great for if you’re in the States. They have little milling machines and lots of cheap tools that work well for one-off stuff, at least.
Was lucky to take an engineering machining class in college and got to use a lathe and mill, am more of a welder now. The definition of a “tool” is pretty loose but lots of small things can be made with just a cheap stick welder and grinder.
Cheers
Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
#23Obligatory link to Primitive Technology on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@primitivetechnology9550 Although, he doesn't recreate past technology - I think he researches what technology could have existed, given the knowledge of our time. Things like his blowers, and his iron smelting processes. Of course, there's only so much you can do with rocks & sticks, so most of what he makes ends up being pretty similar to h…
If you watch any of his videos, I recommend turning on captions. He uses them to explain what he's doing, and why.
Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
#24Reminded of the 2013 Ignoble award[0] where someone ate a shrew to determine what remains would be available for study.
ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE: Brian Crandall [USA] and Peter Stahl [CANADA, USA], for parboiling a dead shrew, and then swallowing the shrew without chewing, and then carefully examining everything excreted during subsequent days — all so they could see which bones would dissolve inside the human digestive system, and which bones would not.
Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
#25I’ve found myself infected with a desire to have a machine shop. I don’t exactly know what I’d use it for, but there’s something so cool about making your own stuff. This fellow inherited his grandfather’s machine shop https://youtu.be/hearLttbrLo?si=r2CHxdepmhQ71xJq and used it to make… a pen. https://youtu.be/j27RKTHMLkA?si=f5OPN7ZJ10EBSZa4 And it’s an addiction I didn’t know I had. The gateway drug that led to all…
If you really want to start from the beginning, get “Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap” by David Gingery.
Quoting the description from Amazon (link below)…
“[It] is a progressive series of seven projects. Beginning with a simple charcoal fired foundry, you produce the castings for building the machine tools to equip your shop. Initially the castings are finished by simple hand methods, but it is not long before the developing machines are doing much of the work to produce their own parts.”
Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
#26I’ve found myself infected with a desire to have a machine shop. I don’t exactly know what I’d use it for, but there’s something so cool about making your own stuff. This fellow inherited his grandfather’s machine shop https://youtu.be/hearLttbrLo?si=r2CHxdepmhQ71xJq and used it to make… a pen. https://youtu.be/j27RKTHMLkA?si=f5OPN7ZJ10EBSZa4 And it’s an addiction I didn’t know I had. The gateway drug that led to all…
That’s what Harbor Freight is great for if you’re in the States. They have little milling machines and lots of cheap tools that work well for one-off stuff, at least. Was lucky to take an engineering machining class in college and got to use a lathe and mill, am more of a welder now. The definition of a “tool” is pretty loose but lots of small things can be made with just a cheap stick welder and grinder. Cheers
Hey, great idea! Thank you!
Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
#27Would have been better had they gotten machinists or rural people that otherwise work with their hands to do this. A bunch of scientists playing make believe chopping wood and scraping bone doesn’t convince me much. We would have been just as specialized back then as we are now. And don’t we have 30,000 year old jewelry with intricate carvings? Why the amazement at “wow, this pointy stone chops wood, man?”
> We would have been just as specialized back then as we are now. Can you please cite some evidence for this? My understanding is that specialization into trades was an outcome of the agricultural revolution, which happened quite a bit later than 30,000 BC.
I've read that many ant species have more "roles" than a typical British village prior to the industrial revolution.
Note that this is in agreement with you, that the number of trades open for people to work in was pretty small until fairly recently.
Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
#28I’ve found myself infected with a desire to have a machine shop. I don’t exactly know what I’d use it for, but there’s something so cool about making your own stuff. This fellow inherited his grandfather’s machine shop https://youtu.be/hearLttbrLo?si=r2CHxdepmhQ71xJq and used it to make… a pen. https://youtu.be/j27RKTHMLkA?si=f5OPN7ZJ10EBSZa4 And it’s an addiction I didn’t know I had. The gateway drug that led to all…
Tools are quite exciting.
You start by acquiring of basic hand operated ones, then there is a whole set of tools for construction that you can probably use for garden furniture carpentry, then come the tools that you can use to create furniture proper.
I believe material wise it is a similar journey. From soft construction wood to hardwoods, that require different tools and techniques...
Metal processing is a challenge of it's own. One set of tolling while you do aluminium grade of metals and then tooling becomes more or less cost prohibitive.
Consider the workshop space. It is a lot of tools for this journey...
It is sort of same as software development. You do spend a lot of time to prepare infrastructure to craft repeatable parts that will stick together and align on a certain angle, etc.
The feeling when it works is magical. Fighting your tool to get things done (it is time for upgrade :)) is dreadful...
Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
#29I’ve found myself infected with a desire to have a machine shop. I don’t exactly know what I’d use it for, but there’s something so cool about making your own stuff. This fellow inherited his grandfather’s machine shop https://youtu.be/hearLttbrLo?si=r2CHxdepmhQ71xJq and used it to make… a pen. https://youtu.be/j27RKTHMLkA?si=f5OPN7ZJ10EBSZa4 And it’s an addiction I didn’t know I had. The gateway drug that led to all…
If you gave them a lathe, I wonder what they would have made.
That confused me because in Spanish, the same word is used for a potter's wheel. Anyway that would be more recent too. But I think that there's a long prehistoric period, between stone tools and stone buildings, that we know very little because they used wood, more than anything else.
I have a lot of respect for our far ancestors thanks to this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_la_Quadra-Salcedo
He made some awesome documentaries in the 70's showing stone age tribes in the Amazonia and their incredible techniques to make a blowgun, arrows or a hut.
It seems there's much interest here for CNC, did you see this post?
Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
#30Who first decided to melt the rocks and get the iron?
The moment men learned to make fire, be sure there was some guy there that put everything to the fire to see what happened.
How do I know? I would have been that guy.