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5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

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Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#31

Post by legulere »

andrewflnr wrote: post #7
MarkusQ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite frustrating how archeology swings over the years from "we'll believe anything" to "we won't accept any claim without a preserved example". While some of the excesses of the past were clearly excessive, drilled holes should have been sufficient evidence of drills, people living on islands should be sufficient evidence of boats, rope-worn bones should be considered evidence of rope and so forth.

Balance would be nice, yes, but I think the conservative approach is closer to correct, especially given the natural human bias toward believing sensational theories.

The problem is that you get a vastly distorted picture because of different survivorship rates of artifacts. In the Stone Age people used mostly wood tools but stone tools didn’t rot away.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#32

Post by gehsty »

toolslive wrote: post #2

It's what a lot of engineers have been saying for decades: Looking at the surfaces of the artefacts, it's obvious more advanced tooling, than what was claimed by archaeologists, must have been used. Oh irony, the bits were already lying about in the museum's archive for a century.

It sounds very un-archaeologist to not investigate the gap between artifact and tooling (like that’s their job?).

For me the ‘archaeology not accepting things’ has been fueled by Graham Hancock etc. Archaeology is a lot like science, it sits on a body of research, if there’s evidence of advanced tooling and it’s properly investigated and written up, verified, no archaeologist would deny it.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#33

Post by chmod775 »

mattlondon wrote: post #30
chmod775 wrote: post #9

Given need, access to anything that might serve as string, pieces of wood, and too much time to think about the problem, most singular humans will come up with that within the year, if not within days. That thing has probably been independently invented a hundred thousand times over. Trying to figure out who did it first is silly. Also that is not a "sophisticated" tool at all. It's literally one step above hitting r…

I think it is several steps up and beyond from hitting rocks together. You need to create string. You need to cut the wood for the bow. The bow and the string need to be the right sizes too. You need something that is sharp enough to work as the drill bit but also small AND approximately round enough to work in the bow. That also needs to be made of a material that is harder than the one you are drilling - here in th…

> You need to create string.

That region typically used flax for string. That's another thing that can be done with virtually no tools.

Even if you skip the retting and merely hand-strip the fibers you still get something usable enough for some use.

These people didn't sit inside looking at screens all day. If your region had a plant that can be trivially turned into usable string you'd know - especially since they had contact/trade with neighboring Asia and there's evidence of flax processing in Georgia another 30k years earlier.

> I suspect the average person would struggle to make fire, let alone hand tools.

It took us maybe a few days of experimenting to finally figure out as boys. We used some modern string, random sticks, and an assortment of materials to try to start a fire with. It's harder than it seems, but not much so if you're determined. If some bored 8 year olds can do it, then so can anyone of any era.

I don't think the linage of anyone for whom that was truly so unattainable would have survived to this day.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#34

Post by gehsty »

chmod775 wrote: post #9

Given need, access to anything that might serve as string, pieces of wood, and too much time to think about the problem, most singular humans will come up with that within the year, if not within days. That thing has probably been independently invented a hundred thousand times over. Trying to figure out who did it first is silly. Also that is not a "sophisticated" tool at all. It's literally one step above hitting r…

Alloying copper with silver and lead is sophisticated. How could they have got to this without structured research, experimentation, controlled manufacturing. It’s a lot closer to our drill bits now than a sharpened bone.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#35

Post by buran77 »

beloch wrote: post #21
MarkusQ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite frustrating how archeology swings over the years from "we'll believe anything" to "we won't accept any claim without a preserved example". While some of the excesses of the past were clearly excessive, drilled holes should have been sufficient evidence of drills, people living on islands should be sufficient evidence of boats, rope-worn bones should be considered evidence of rope and so forth.

It's possible to put holes through things without a drill. People can get onto islands without boats. How do you define rope, and what else might cause similar wear? Are you certain you can distinguish them? Archaeology has come a long way over the last couple of centuries. It used to be little better than grave robbing and crackpot (often racist) theories. Archaeologists made all sorts of assumptions that turned out…

If you find a man made hole with a perfectly vertical shaft and high aspect ratio (tall and narrow), it was drilled. Individuals can float or be washed ashore on an island, populations can't. If you find entire civilizations on distant islands, they got there by some sort of boat or advanced raft. Rope generally implies twisted or braided fibers, so maybe it's difficult to tell if this was artificially twisted or a natural one like a vine. But if it looked like a rope, and was used like a rope then it was a rope.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#36

Post by zkmon »

Indian carpenters always had a drill with large spindle around which a long rope is wound. A person pulls the rope back and forth spinning the drill. Another person holds the drill in position using a flat wood piece at the top with small hole to hold the drill axle.

Same technique is also used for spinning a wooden churner to get butterfat out of curd. A standing woman would pull the rope back and forth for a few minutes on the long churner stick that is churning the curd in a clay pot placed on the floor.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#37

Post by cyphar »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #24
MarkusQ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kamitakamori tools? Piltdown fossils? The pattern roughly seems to be "if you have physical artifacts that support a theory / fit a pattern they will be accepted (even if bogus) but if you have a theory that explains facts (e.g. drilled holes) but no physical artifacts (in this case drills) it will be rejected". (Just saw the snark about ancient aliens; no idea where that came from. If you're going to try to impl…

Piltdown was rejected 70 years ago, so hardly a current example. Kamitakamori was someone taking legitimately old artifacts and putting them in other places. You can detect that (as people did), but it's much less obvious than you're suggesting. There are also numerous examples where physical artifacts haven't been immediately accepted. The white sands footprints. Monte Verde II. Others like Monte Verde I, Buttermilk…

> Piltdown was rejected 70 years ago, so hardly a current example

Well of course it wasn't a current example -- to quote their original comment:

> Quite frustrating how archeology swings over the years from "we'll believe anything" to "we won't accept any claim without a preserved example". While some of the excesses of the past were clearly excessive ... [emphasis added]

In other words, they feel that historical examples of fanciful theories being mainstream has resulted in an over correction to modern archeology requiring unreasonably strict proof standards.

(There is a certain irony in a user called "AlotOfReading" not reading a fairly short comment carefully...)

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#39

Post by vee-kay »

ReptileMan wrote: post #19
chmod775 wrote: post #9

Given need, access to anything that might serve as string, pieces of wood, and too much time to think about the problem, most singular humans will come up with that within the year, if not within days. That thing has probably been independently invented a hundred thousand times over. Trying to figure out who did it first is silly. Also that is not a "sophisticated" tool at all. It's literally one step above hitting r…

But to make a drill bit of highly alloyed copper you need a bit more tools and knowledge

Do a web search for "Wootz steel", "Damascus blades" and "Iron pillars India". The ancient world certainly had expertise in advanced metallurgy. Wootz steel was actually nanotech.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#40

Post by saidnooneever »

MarkusQ wrote: post #6
toolslive wrote: post #2

It's what a lot of engineers have been saying for decades: Looking at the surfaces of the artefacts, it's obvious more advanced tooling, than what was claimed by archaeologists, must have been used. Oh irony, the bits were already lying about in the museum's archive for a century.

Quite frustrating how archeology swings over the years from "we'll believe anything" to "we won't accept any claim without a preserved example". While some of the excesses of the past were clearly excessive, drilled holes should have been sufficient evidence of drills, people living on islands should be sufficient evidence of boats, rope-worn bones should be considered evidence of rope and so forth.

they dont even accept claims with properly documented and preserved samples. your methodology doesnt matter if it disagrees with the common accepted 'truth'.

archeology is a cesspool.

not to mention tons of hings being twisted into weird shit only to try and push colonial agendas!

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