Comment by shay_ker
10 days ago
The thing I’m continually surprised by is the usage of obsidian by nearly every ancient-ish civilization. The usage of bow & arrow predates farming, insane.
10 days ago
The thing I’m continually surprised by is the usage of obsidian by nearly every ancient-ish civilization. The usage of bow & arrow predates farming, insane.
I guess that before metal working, obsidian would have been the best knife edge available.
It's a far, far better knife edge than metal even now. It's used in some specialized scalpels. It's just fragile.
Not really that insane, hunting is a much faster reward cycle than farming. On the surface, it makes sense that tools for hunting are produced earlier than tools for farming
Ancient crops were also pathetic to a modern eye. Before thousands of years of selective breeding, corn had six or seven kernels on a cob. Doubtful that it would be possible to survive on a field of wild cultivars without at least a few generations pushing towards more productive specimens.
https://evolution.earthathome.org/grasses/andropogoneae/maiz...