Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick, and Rob and I are
Speaker 2: out this week, so we're bringing you an episode from
Speaker 2: the vault. This is sort of part four in our
Speaker 2: series that we started reairing last week about throwing behaviors
Speaker 2: in non human animals. But here we're getting, of course,
Speaker 2: to the emergence of throwing behaviors in humans and human ancestors.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoy and oh this one originally published
Speaker 2: January twelfth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part four
Speaker 2: of our series on throwing behavior. Now, in previous parts
Speaker 2: we focused mainly on non human animals. We've looked at
Speaker 2: alleged throwing behaviors in octopuses, in elephants, in the mongoose.
Speaker 2: We definitely had a digression about dogs with air Bud
Speaker 2: in the previous episode. But also in the previous episode
Speaker 2: we ended up talking about the evolution of the human
Speaker 2: capacity for throwing, which we are particularly apt at Humans
Speaker 2: are very good at throwing, especially compared to our nearest
Speaker 2: primate relatives. So like a chimpanzee maybe on average three
Speaker 2: or four times stronger than a human, But a human,
Speaker 2: even without specialized training, can generally throw a lot more
Speaker 2: forcefully and a lot better than a chimpanzee can. So
Speaker 2: why are we so specialized for throwing? Well, we took
Speaker 2: a look at some evolutionary hypotheses about where our capacity
Speaker 2: for throwing comes from. But there was another thing that
Speaker 2: I came across while researching this subject that I did
Speaker 2: not get into in the previous episode, and I wanted
Speaker 2: to come back to it here because I found it
Speaker 2: really interesting. And this is the idea of what if
Speaker 2: the evolution of throwing was somehow a necessary precursor for
Speaker 2: the evolution of probably the most distinctly human trait language,
Speaker 2: So not just that humans are good at throwing and
Speaker 2: good at language, but that there is actually a neurobiological
Speaker 2: link between the two one comes from the other. So
Speaker 2: to look at this question, I wanted to refer to
Speaker 2: a paper by William D. Hopkins, Jamie L. Russell, and
Speaker 2: Jennifer A. Schaeffer published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Speaker 2: Society b Biological Sciences, published in twenty twelve, called the
Speaker 2: Neural and Cognitive Correlates of Aimed Throwing in Chimpanzees a magnetic, resonance, image,
Speaker 2: and behavioral study on a unique form of social tool use.
Speaker 2: So to begin, they cover some of the same ground
Speaker 2: we did in the previous episode. You know how unusual
Speaker 2: he when throwing behavior is in a way, and despite
Speaker 2: all the interesting examples we've discussed in these episodes of
Speaker 2: animals throwing things for various reasons, whether trained by humans
Speaker 2: or just doing it as part of their natural instinctual behaviors,
Speaker 2: the authors here argue that in general, throwing remains unsystematic,
Speaker 2: in their words, in other animals, And I think this
Speaker 2: is fair. No other animal practices the kind of generalized,
Speaker 2: skillful habitual throwing that we do, certainly not without training
Speaker 2: by humans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as we discussed in the previous episode, it goes
Speaker 1: way back in human behavior, and it's something that even today,
Speaker 1: with all our other tools and ways of doing things
Speaker 1: at a distance, we still engage in throwing. I think
Speaker 1: in the very first episode we discussed that sort of
Speaker 1: at least in my case, this strange pull to need
Speaker 1: to throw a ball with my son when he was younger,
Speaker 1: even though we're not a baseball or softball family. But
Speaker 1: it was just kind of the thing that I guess
Speaker 1: was like nostalgic in the culture, but also very satisfying
Speaker 1: to do and something that even if you're not very
Speaker 1: practiced at you can do with some or at least
Speaker 1: I found that I could do with some degree of precision,
Speaker 1: despite being very rusty at the whole softball baseball thing.
Speaker 2: I totally sympathize with you there. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: neither of us are really sports guys. I don't really
Speaker 2: want rules, I don't really want teams, but I do
Speaker 2: want ball or frisbee. Frisbee just as good in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean there's also there's a lot more
Speaker 1: throwing that goes on too, Like how often do we
Speaker 1: find ourselves across the room from someone We request something
Speaker 1: and they give it a tok, they throw it to us,
Speaker 1: and you want to be able to catch it for
Speaker 1: various reasons. And then that's without even getting into the
Speaker 1: various sports that even if we don't engage in, we
Speaker 1: may watch and the throwing of balls is often an
Speaker 1: essential part, or at least one aspect of a given
Speaker 1: sport right.
Speaker 2: But of course, apart from these recreational concerns, you know,
Speaker 2: throwing has been crucial to the survival of our ancestors.
Speaker 2: That seems pretty clear. And in the last episode we
Speaker 2: talked about arguments from evolutionary anthropology that throwing was positively
Speaker 2: selected for in human ancestors, and the bodies of hominin
Speaker 2: species like Homo erectus show anatomical changes that seem to
Speaker 2: favor forceful overhand throwing. I remember those changes. They're changes
Speaker 2: in the shoulder and the waist and the upper arm,
Speaker 2: all of which combined to allow for a more substantial
Speaker 2: wind up, sort of a pulling back of tension of
Speaker 2: the biomechanical bowstring to be released rapidly during the throw.
Speaker 2: And we also talked about the argument that these changes
Speaker 2: appear to coincide with evidence of meat becoming a bigger
Speaker 2: part of the diet of these hominins, showing that throwing
Speaker 2: was likely useful for obtaining food, either through power scavenging
Speaker 2: like driving predators away from a kill in order to
Speaker 2: take the meat for yourself, or direct hunting, and either
Speaker 2: way increasing the availability of food energy. Now, one very
Speaker 2: interesting thing about the adaptation for throwing is that it
Speaker 2: implies not only changes in the muscles and the skeletal system.
Speaker 2: Of course, you know, you can see all those changes
Speaker 2: around the scapula and the shoulder blade, changes in the waist,
Speaker 2: the arm, and so forth, But it also implies changes
Speaker 2: in cognition. An animal that can throw objects sourced from
Speaker 2: the environment is showing a specialized way of thinking, and
Speaker 2: not just a specialized way of moving. Now what do
Speaker 2: I mean by this? Well, as one example, the authors
Speaker 2: reference a specific captive chimpanzee who came up in the
Speaker 2: last episode. Robie, remember the story of Santino, the chimpanzee
Speaker 2: who was in a zoo and I believe Sweden was it?
Speaker 1: I believe?
Speaker 2: So, yes, Ip Santino, Yeah, poor Santino. The authors right
Speaker 2: that Santino, who I guess was alive at the time
Speaker 2: this paper was written. Quote hydes rocks out of sight
Speaker 2: of the care staff, waiting to reveal and throw them
Speaker 2: at approaching visitors at the most opportune time. Evidence of
Speaker 2: planning comes from the observation that Santino searches for the
Speaker 2: rocks from a moat inside the enclosure prior to the
Speaker 2: arrival of the care staff and the visitors, and cashes
Speaker 2: the rocks out of sight, only to pull them out
Speaker 2: when the visitors arrive. That is a crafty chimp, and
Speaker 2: that is forethought. Adding to this, the authors throw in
Speaker 2: their own observations of similar pre planning behavior in chimpanzees
Speaker 2: in two other research environments, and they argue that the
Speaker 2: throwing quote, though often agonistic in function and consequence, agonistic
Speaker 2: meaningless confrontational aggressive behavior, is not part of the ape's
Speaker 2: display behavior. Indeed, most instances of aimed throwing that we
Speaker 2: have observed occur without any accompanying display behavior such as
Speaker 2: pilo erection, hooting, and charging, further suggesting an element of
Speaker 2: planning on the part of the individual ape. So I
Speaker 2: think that's interesting too if you understand what they're saying there,
Speaker 2: that there is a sort of standard display behavior algorithm,
Speaker 2: like when an ape is doing an agonistic display when
Speaker 2: trying to be dominant and aggressive and maybe scare you off.
Speaker 2: It includes all of these sub features like the pilo
Speaker 2: erection meaning the bristling of body hair, hair stands on end, hooting,
Speaker 2: charging back and forth, all that stuff. And they say
Speaker 2: that when the apes throw stuff at people, they do
Speaker 2: it without all of these other features of a typical
Speaker 2: instinctual display. Another way that throwing is different from most
Speaker 2: other forms of tool use and apes. The most commonly
Speaker 2: observed types of tool use by wild chimpanzees are all
Speaker 2: things where the tool is used to extract otherwise unreachable food,
Speaker 2: often like from a hole or enclosure of some kind,
Speaker 2: and then is eaten immediately. So examples here would be
Speaker 2: cracking of nuts with stones like nut cracking is an
Speaker 2: example of ape tool use, but also termite fishing with sticks,
Speaker 2: ant dipping, and so forth. All of these give rise
Speaker 2: to an immediate food reward for executing the behavior, meaning
Speaker 2: that these behaviors are subject to regular operant conditioning rules.
Speaker 2: You know, if a behavior leads to an immediate food reward,
Speaker 2: an animal can learn to repeat basically any arbitrary set
Speaker 2: of actions. So you know, chimpanzee gets delicious termites every
Speaker 2: time it. Of course, if it dips for them, that's
Speaker 2: one thing. But maybe if it stands on one foot
Speaker 2: and gets termites every time, it may learn to stand
Speaker 2: on one foot to get the meat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we see this reflected and so many experiments
Speaker 1: involving animals over the years. You know, can you get
Speaker 1: an animal to manipulate some sort of technological gadget in
Speaker 1: order to get a food reward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pressing a button or something that would have no
Speaker 2: relevance in the natural environment. So other tool use behaviors
Speaker 2: could easily be learned and reinforced through this kind of conditioning.
Speaker 2: But throwing, as practiced by apes does not lead to
Speaker 2: an immediate food reward. In fact, it rarely, if ever,
Speaker 2: leads to a food reward at all the author's right quote.
Speaker 2: What appears to be the main reward for throwing is
Speaker 2: the simple ability to control or manipulate the behavior of
Speaker 2: the targeted individual ape or human, which, though you could
Speaker 2: consider it a goal, I mean that is much more
Speaker 2: complicated and ambiguous than a direct food reward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's not like the ape in this scenario
Speaker 1: is throwing the rock, hitting the human, and then by
Speaker 1: hitting the human they drop an apple, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, from here, the authors go on to discuss
Speaker 2: the underappreciated complexity of throwing. We also talked about this
Speaker 2: at length in the previous episode. But you know, suffice
Speaker 2: to say, force full, precise overhand throwing is an extremely
Speaker 2: demanding task, not only for the muscles but for the brain,
Speaker 2: requiring split second coordination of perceptual judgments all kinds of things.
Speaker 2: You know, how far away is the target, is it
Speaker 2: moving in what direction? And how fast? What are the
Speaker 2: physical properties of the projectile and so forth. But then
Speaker 2: the other thing is the sequential motor control. To throw
Speaker 2: an object, you have to precisely time a rapid sequence
Speaker 2: of muscular movements, and other authors have previously suggested that
Speaker 2: quote the increased selection for neural synchrony of rapid muscular sequencing.
Speaker 2: Routines associated with actions such as throwing are similar to
Speaker 2: the motor programming demands of language and speech, and therefore
Speaker 2: engage similar neural systems, notably Broca's area. In other words,
Speaker 2: there are similarities between what the brain is doing and
Speaker 2: what parts of the brain are being used to coordinate
Speaker 2: a throw and to process language and speech. And one
Speaker 2: idea that gets wrapped up in this is the role
Speaker 2: of brain lateralization, segmenting of brain processes to one hemisphere
Speaker 2: or side of the brain or the other. So in
Speaker 2: cultures where throwing behavior has been studied, the authors say
Speaker 2: the majority of people pretty much always prefer to throw
Speaker 2: with the right hand. Studies in chimpanzees also show a
Speaker 2: bias toward right handedness for throwing, and these right hand
Speaker 2: preferences suggest left hemisphere dominance in the brain in these
Speaker 2: majorities of both populations, because when it comes to controlling
Speaker 2: the body's movements, of course, you know, the hemispheres are flipped. Generally,
Speaker 2: the left hemisphere links to the right hand, the right
Speaker 2: hemisphere to the left, and so forth. Some researchers have
Speaker 2: pointed this out in the context of the fact that
Speaker 2: the left hemisphere also contains the brain regions, notably Broca's area,
Speaker 2: that dominate the production of speech. Broker's area is also
Speaker 2: known as the motor speech area, and one researcher who
Speaker 2: has focused on this is the American neurophysiologist William H. Calvin,
Speaker 2: who was actually, I think maybe still is a professor
Speaker 2: at the University of Washington at Seattle, who observing that
Speaker 2: eighty nine percent of people prefer to throw with the
Speaker 2: right arm, Calvin hypothesized that the left hemispher's capacity for
Speaker 2: language may have actually evolved from a pre existing adaptation
Speaker 2: for right handed throwing. He apparently published a book that
Speaker 2: contained this hypothesis. In nineteen eighty three, it was called
Speaker 2: The Throwing Madonna.
Speaker 1: Oh didn't they adapted this into the film a lead
Speaker 1: of their own right?
Speaker 2: Was Madonna in that?
Speaker 1: I believe?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh, okay? Was she the picture in the movie?
Speaker 1: Ah? Oh, I don't remember, but I mean surely she
Speaker 1: threw a ball at least once. I mean there's a
Speaker 1: lot of throwing in baseball.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you throw, no matter what position you are. I
Speaker 2: guess the picture throws the most.
Speaker 1: There's no crying in baseball, but there was throwing in baseball.
Speaker 1: There's a lot that much. I remember for the film.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Madonna was definitely throwing, no matter what position
Speaker 2: she played. No, but it unfortunately did not become the
Speaker 2: basis of the movie as far as I know. Instead,
Speaker 2: it was a place where Calvin laid out an interesting
Speaker 2: sort of story, a possible series of developments that could
Speaker 2: have led to the development of language via the stepping
Speaker 2: stone of capacity for throwing. So the story goes like this,
Speaker 2: lateralization evolved for one handed throwing with the right hand,
Speaker 2: specifically so that parents, typically mothers, could cradle an infant
Speaker 2: on their left side and then they'd be free to
Speaker 2: throw with the right hand if they needed to. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously things like this are hard to prove
Speaker 2: for sure, but that is an interesting idea because I
Speaker 2: started thinking about how I recently became a father, and
Speaker 2: without thinking about it at all, I pretty much always
Speaker 2: when I hold my baby, hold her on the left
Speaker 2: side of my torso, and so if she like falls
Speaker 2: asleep against me, her head is going to be on
Speaker 2: the left side of my chest and from my point
Speaker 2: of view, which is also the side where the heartbeat
Speaker 2: is closer. I never planned it that way, that that
Speaker 2: just sort of happened, and I was talking to my
Speaker 2: wife and she said, yeah, most often she's on the
Speaker 2: left side there too, So I don't know that that's
Speaker 2: kind of interesting. I mean, it could be totally unrelated,
Speaker 2: but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would always scoop up on the
Speaker 1: left side as well. My son is now I think
Speaker 1: finally too big for me to do that without seriously
Speaker 1: injuring myself.
Speaker 2: But yes, and I guess at a certain point you
Speaker 2: become less desiring of the heartbeat sound that like maybe
Speaker 2: loses some of the power it has over really young infants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I guess it varies from child
Speaker 1: to child, depends on how big they get and at
Speaker 1: what point they want that distance.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, so it's hard to know for sure if
Speaker 2: the need to scoop a child and hold them on
Speaker 2: the left side of the body, close to the heartbeat
Speaker 2: is the real reason driving brain lateralization. I find it
Speaker 2: more compelling than some other hypotheses that seemed to be
Speaker 2: on offer at the time, one that cited I was
Speaker 2: reading a review of this book by Calvin that cited
Speaker 2: a previous hypothesis that the right handedness evolved because men
Speaker 2: in battle I guess prehistoric battle needed to hold a
Speaker 2: shield above their above their heart on the left side.
Speaker 2: I was like, I get out of here.
Speaker 1: This discussion reminds me of a painting, an eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: eight painting that I hadn't thought of in a bit,
Speaker 1: I believe what if The title of this piece is
Speaker 1: Two Mothers by Leon Maxim of Favre. I'm pronouncing that correctly.
Speaker 1: It's f A I v R. But it's a pretty
Speaker 1: stunning piece in which we see this vision of a
Speaker 1: of a prehistoric mother with very modern touches to it.
Speaker 1: But she's standing here in some sort of a you know,
Speaker 1: a hide garment, and she has this heavy looking infant
Speaker 1: in her left arm, and then there's another child sort
Speaker 1: of hanging on to her left arm. In her right hand,
Speaker 1: she has uh like some sort of a stone weapon,
Speaker 1: like a wooden half with a with a stone blade,
Speaker 1: some sort of like you know, primitive acts or club.
Speaker 1: And she's staring back into the shadows behind her with
Speaker 1: there's this kind of like cave environment, and there's clearly
Speaker 1: an animal lurking there or an animal emerging from the shadows.
Speaker 1: And I think this is supposed to be the other mother,
Speaker 1: the mother that is hunting her. And I have no
Speaker 1: idea of this. This this piece has has any connection
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, But it is interesting that
Speaker 1: we do see left arm cradling children, right arm brandishing
Speaker 1: a weapon to protect those children against some threat.
Speaker 2: It is a kind of beautiful painting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, her hair is perfect too, like this mom's really
Speaker 1: got it together, perfect hair, protecting the children, ready to
Speaker 1: brain a panther with some sort of a stone weapon.
Speaker 2: Anyway, whatever the cause of the right hand lateralization for
Speaker 2: sequential motor control in throwing, The hypothesis goes on from
Speaker 2: here to suggest that sequential motor control regions that made
Speaker 2: us so good at tossing a stone with one hand
Speaker 2: were eventually commondeered by selection pressure for communication and shifted
Speaker 2: to a different kind of sequential motor control, which was
Speaker 2: language production. Now, when we think of language production, we
Speaker 2: think of speech, and that could be the case. I
Speaker 2: think Calvin argued for a transitional state where the original
Speaker 2: language was more gesture based, like gesturing with the hands maybe,
Speaker 2: which would have then transitioned into speech production with the mouth. Again,
Speaker 2: like many things here, that's not something we know for sure,
Speaker 2: so we're in very speculative territory. But I do find
Speaker 2: this really interesting. So again, if there's anything to this story,
Speaker 2: it would go that for some reason, there is an
Speaker 2: original right hand left brain motor lateralization for the majority
Speaker 2: of the population for throwing objects. Human ancestors get really
Speaker 2: good at throwing with that one hand, maybe cradling a
Speaker 2: baby in the other arm or doing something else. And
Speaker 2: then you could argue that the lateralization for precise sequential
Speaker 2: motor activity and the left brain to power throwing eventually
Speaker 2: provides the neurological scaffolding for the left brain's capacity for
Speaker 2: language and speech. Now, what was the actual experiment in
Speaker 2: this study, Well, it was looking at our closest primate
Speaker 2: relatives to see if they could provide any insight on
Speaker 2: what might have been going on in the brains of
Speaker 2: very distant human ancestors. So they were looking at chimpanzees. Now, again,
Speaker 2: chimpanzees don't throw nearly as well or as often as
Speaker 2: we do, but some throw sometimes, So what if anything
Speaker 2: is different in the brains of chimpanzees that reliably throw
Speaker 2: versus those that don't. Specifically, the authors looked at the
Speaker 2: ratio of two different types of brain tissue, white matter
Speaker 2: and gray matter in the areas of chimpanzee brains that
Speaker 2: would be most similar to the areas of the human
Speaker 2: brain involved in motor control for throwing and for speech.
Speaker 2: And this would be quote the homologue to Broca's area.
Speaker 2: I remember again Broker's areas involved in speech production in humans.
Speaker 2: And then they also say as well as the motor
Speaker 2: hand area of the precentral gyrus termed the knob, K
Speaker 2: and OB. And what they found was that in both
Speaker 2: of these areas, in the chimpanzee equivalent of Broker's area
Speaker 2: and in the knob. The ratio of white matter to
Speaker 2: gray matter was higher in chimpanzees that throw versus those
Speaker 2: that don't. Also quote, we further found that asymmetries in
Speaker 2: white matter within both brain regions were larger in the
Speaker 2: hemisphere contralateral to the chimpanzee's preferred throwing hand. So what
Speaker 2: they're saying is it's not just that the ratio of
Speaker 2: white matter was higher in these regions on both sides
Speaker 2: of the brain. It's that whichever hand the chimpanzee liked
Speaker 2: to throw with those particular regions had a higher proportion
Speaker 2: of white matter on the opposite side of the brain. Also,
Speaker 2: they assessed the chimpanzees in this study with what is
Speaker 2: called a Primate Cognition Test BATTERY or pct B, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, a sort of an SAT for chimpanzees, standard
Speaker 2: tests on all kinds of mental abilities, you know, tons
Speaker 2: of things, spatial memory, causality, inference, tool property, recognition, gaze following,
Speaker 2: and so forth. And they were looking at, well, are
Speaker 2: there any differences between apes that throw and apes that
Speaker 2: don't throw? And out of this entire test battery generally
Speaker 2: not generally, there were no cognitive differences except in one area.
Speaker 2: There was only one aptitude where there was a significant difference,
Speaker 2: and it was that researchers found chimpanzees that were more
Speaker 2: inclined to throw were also better at social communication. So
Speaker 2: the author's right quote. These results suggest that chimpanzees that
Speaker 2: have learned to throw have developed greater cortical connectivity that's
Speaker 2: correlating with the white matter between the primary motor cortex
Speaker 2: and the Broca's area. Homologue, it is suggested that during
Speaker 2: hominine evolution, after the split between lines leading to chimpanzees
Speaker 2: and humans, there was intense selection on increased motor skills
Speaker 2: associated with throwing, and that this potentially formed the foundation
Speaker 2: for left hemisphere specialization associated with language and speech found
Speaker 2: in modern humans. So this is another case where I
Speaker 2: think this is far from proven. We would need much
Speaker 2: more robust evidence before you could endorse this specific evolutionary
Speaker 2: story as likely. But I find this very intriguing and
Speaker 2: it does seem possible to me that the capacity for
Speaker 2: throwing gave rise to the capacity for language.
Speaker 1: So ape throws the bone, the bone spins around the
Speaker 1: bone becomes a space station, just as Kubrick promised us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't think about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to get back into this idea of
Speaker 1: early humans, especially throwing stones as weapons and throwing other
Speaker 1: things as weapons. You know, as we discussed in the
Speaker 1: last episode, we talked about some of the ideas concerning
Speaker 1: the development of ranged weapon technology and prehistoric humans. This
Speaker 1: idea that what first begins as a way of engaging
Speaker 1: in agonistic communication could transform into just a way of
Speaker 1: physically sin a message to another species via projectile. But
Speaker 1: then eventually that begins to get into this way to
Speaker 1: manipulate their behavior at range, especially in the case of
Speaker 1: power scavenging, and ultimately it could be used as a
Speaker 1: way to hunt prey animals. Right, And as we were
Speaker 1: actually recording that episode, my mind kept turning to these
Speaker 1: images of some sort of prehistoric warfare scenario in which
Speaker 1: some you know, entirely too kubricky prehistoric people were employing
Speaker 1: various weapons and kind of probably also probably a slightly
Speaker 1: two table top war game manner where you have you know,
Speaker 1: units of bone wielding beaters moving forward to engage in
Speaker 1: some melee attacks, and then maybe you have some units
Speaker 1: of rock throwers behind them, and you know this this
Speaker 1: felt kind of silly in my head, maybe even a
Speaker 1: little Gary Larson esque in my head, a little farside.
Speaker 1: But then I started looking into it more because, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, rock throwers were an important part of our history,
Speaker 1: and when you start looking at into the history of
Speaker 1: not only range weaponry, but hand range weaponry, it gets
Speaker 1: pretty fascinating.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean, I think one of the main
Speaker 2: things that striking is rediscovering how potent to force simple
Speaker 2: thrown objects are, even in an era where powered projectile
Speaker 2: technology like bows or crossbows or even guns exist.
Speaker 1: When you think of somebody's throwing rocks, there at least
Speaker 1: can be this sort of feeling that it's like a
Speaker 1: juvenile sort of thing, that it's primitive, that it's a nuisance.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, I think most of us
Speaker 1: realize that it's also quite dangerous. Nobody wants to be
Speaker 1: hit in the head with a thrown rock. A well
Speaker 1: aimed thrown rock can of course be deadly true, and
Speaker 1: on top of that, a volley of thrown rocks from
Speaker 1: multiple assailants even more dangerous. And of course we see
Speaker 1: this reflected in the use of stoning as a form
Speaker 1: of execution from ancient times through modern times. But I
Speaker 1: didn't want to dwell so much on that because that's
Speaker 1: more depressing subject matter. But I wanted to focus more
Speaker 1: on hand thrown stones and weapons in a hunting and
Speaker 1: warfare context. Okay, So I think for many of us,
Speaker 1: and this was me until just the other day, we
Speaker 1: tend to think of ranged weapons as this steady ascent
Speaker 1: out of the Stone Age. So sure we threw stones
Speaker 1: at things then, and we greatly increased our ability to
Speaker 1: strategically employ those thrown stones, But then we got why,
Speaker 1: and then of coach, we probably got wiser about how
Speaker 1: we selected stones, granted, But then eventually we're gonna level up, right,
Speaker 1: You're gonna upgrade to using something like a sling, a spear,
Speaker 1: a spear thrower, a bow and arrow across bow, et cetera,
Speaker 1: all the way up through the modern era. And I
Speaker 1: think it's easy to think of this as a linear progression,
Speaker 1: or like a video game skill tree, a situation where
Speaker 1: you could you're yelling at the screen, Hey, don't equip
Speaker 1: the throwing rock, you fool. You have a spear, Now
Speaker 1: equip the spear.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, video game logic pervades our thoughts in every way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but of course this is not exactly how things
Speaker 1: pan out for a number of reasons. Speaking broadly in
Speaker 1: terms of just weaponry in general, materials are one factor,
Speaker 1: and we've discussed that on the show before, but another
Speaker 1: huge factor to consider is that humans are such great
Speaker 1: natural throwers, as we've been discussing, and it's such a
Speaker 1: big part of the weapon history, that there just may
Speaker 1: not be a good reason to completely abandon the hand
Speaker 1: thrown stone, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can imagine cases where people are having
Speaker 2: great success with just hand thrown stones, and why fix
Speaker 2: what's not broken?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then if something also becomes a part of culture,
Speaker 1: becomes a part of a martial art and a weapon tradition,
Speaker 1: then there's this added incentive to keep it around. So
Speaker 1: I started looking into some examples from Polynesian weaponry and
Speaker 1: martial arts. The first thing I ran across was an
Speaker 1: interesting mention in the Coming of the Mallori Weapons, a
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine text by New Zealand anthropologists and doctor
Speaker 1: Tae Rangi Heroa who lived eighteen seventy seven through nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty one, in discussing the prevalence for spears and clubs
Speaker 1: in Polynesian history. He also discusses the swing as a
Speaker 1: primary range weapon along with the spear, and then he
Speaker 1: shares the following quote. Stones were also thrown by hand,
Speaker 1: and early European voyagers have reported this form of attack
Speaker 1: more than the use of the sling. The bow and arrow,
Speaker 1: while present in some groups, was used for sport but
Speaker 1: not as a weapon of war. In Samoa it was
Speaker 1: used to shoot pigeons, in Hawaii to shoot rats, and
Speaker 1: in the Society Islands it was a chiefly sport in
Speaker 1: which archers clad in special costume shot for distance from
Speaker 1: raised stone platforms. Now, obviously this is an older source here,
Speaker 1: but instantly reading this he realized, well, this is true.
Speaker 1: It raises interesting possibilities about the dependability of thrown stones
Speaker 1: as weaponry even as other technologies come online.
Speaker 2: Right, so you could have the technology of a bow
Speaker 2: but still prefer hand thrown stones for some utilities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the advantages of the bow, of course, are
Speaker 1: well documented. You know, none of this that we're getting
Speaker 1: into is going to be a statement that along the
Speaker 1: lines of well, actually a throne rock is better than
Speaker 1: a high power bow or anything like that. But it
Speaker 1: is true that the use of the bow was widespread,
Speaker 1: not only in ancient armies, but among hunter gatherers. But
Speaker 1: as Thomas Hoolett points out in a section on ranged
Speaker 1: weaponry in the book Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World,
Speaker 1: not all hunter gatherers use the bow and arrow. He
Speaker 1: mentions Australian Aborigines as an example of a people who
Speaker 1: did not, despite some of them surely being aware of
Speaker 1: the technology via contact with the Tarres Strait Islanders who
Speaker 1: used bows. They were still people that retain the use
Speaker 1: of ranged weaponry that depended on hand thrown objects, and
Speaker 1: will come back to the most famous classification of hand
Speaker 1: thrown objects that they used in a bit. But where
Speaker 1: I really got fascinated with all of this was a
Speaker 1: paper from twenty eleven. This was published in the Journal
Speaker 1: of the Polynesian Society by Barbara Isaac and Grenaria Isaac
Speaker 1: titled Unexpected Trajectories, a History of New Wayan Throwing Stones.
Speaker 1: The authors here describe the warstones of New Way. New
Speaker 1: Way is an island that's fifteen hundred miles or twenty
Speaker 1: four hundred kilometers northeast of New Zealand, and when Captain
Speaker 1: James Cook visited the island in seventeen seventy four. He
Speaker 1: dubbed it the Savage Island, which may have had something
Speaker 1: to do with their consumption of the native banana species,
Speaker 1: which to understand had like a red peal and an
Speaker 1: orangeish interior, and if in the teeth or rubbed on
Speaker 1: the body, might look like blood. This also clearly reflects
Speaker 1: Cook's general attitude towards indigenous peoples as well. But he
Speaker 1: also certainly seemed to have encountered some difficulty in landing
Speaker 1: on New Way. It's apparently difficult to land on the
Speaker 1: island anyway due to the surrounding coral reefs, but the
Speaker 1: people of New Way were also hostile to his landing
Speaker 1: attempts and his naturalists. The naturalist on this particular voyage,
Speaker 1: Andrews Sparman, was injured by a thrown stone. I believe
Speaker 1: it got him in the arm. The New Way here
Speaker 1: they were not just picking up random stones and throwing
Speaker 1: them either. This is where it gets really fascinating. They
Speaker 1: had a highly refined approach to the use of hand
Speaker 1: thrown ranged stone weaponry. According to Isaac and Isaac, the
Speaker 1: warriors were reported at the time to each have spears
Speaker 1: on their person, to have a swing and also have
Speaker 1: a pouch of stones for throwing. But throwing stones and
Speaker 1: sling launch stones were not uncommon among other people who
Speaker 1: were encountered on islands from this vast region, so comparatively,
Speaker 1: there wasn't much Western commentary on these throwing stones. But
Speaker 1: the throwing stones of New Way, according to Isaac and Isaac,
Speaker 1: were quite singular, and much of it would come out
Speaker 1: later through indigenous recollections, the work of later anthropologists and missionaries,
Speaker 1: as well as later analysis of stones that were subsequently
Speaker 1: taken off the island after Western contact.
Speaker 2: So these war.
Speaker 1: Stones, the crazy thing about them is that, again these
Speaker 1: are not just stones that were picked up or even
Speaker 1: stones that were sort of painstakingly collected and the way
Speaker 1: that one might scour the rocks by a stream to
Speaker 1: find the best rocks for skipping. Now, these were crafted items,
Speaker 1: made of I think predominantly limestone crafted items.
Speaker 2: So you might think of this as more like an
Speaker 2: arrow or an axe head or something, but it is
Speaker 2: a stone for throwing with the hand right right.
Speaker 1: The people here would harvest the stone, apparently from stalactites
Speaker 1: and stalagmites in naturally occurring caves on the island and
Speaker 1: then wear them down into the desired shape by working
Speaker 1: them over with other pieces of stone or with pieces
Speaker 1: of coral. So we're talking considerable manufacturing effort going into these. Again,
Speaker 1: they're not just picked up off the ground. They're not
Speaker 1: even scavenge from the ground. They are manufactured from materials
Speaker 1: that are harvested. They tended to weigh around three to
Speaker 1: four pounds each and they were largely spherical in shape.
Speaker 1: They were often compared to small cannon balls by Western commentators,
Speaker 1: but the difference is that they were elongated a little
Speaker 1: bit on the two opposing ends. You can look up
Speaker 1: pictures of these online and to me, if I was
Speaker 1: to compare them to a naturally occurring object, I would
Speaker 1: say they kind of look like like well crafted stone,
Speaker 1: lemons or limes.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, lemon, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah they have that. Or I guess you
Speaker 1: could almost say they don't really look like a football,
Speaker 1: but they have I guess, a slightly football esque shape,
Speaker 1: or they remind me of certain like malformed or not malformed,
Speaker 1: but sort of slightly unrealistic toy footballs you might have
Speaker 1: seen if you were a child, you know, back in
Speaker 1: the eighties or something.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I was just briefly amused by the concept of
Speaker 2: a toy football.
Speaker 1: Well, well, you have the functional football. It's for serious business,
Speaker 1: for the sport of American football. And then you have
Speaker 1: something that's that's less serious.
Speaker 2: This is a football, this is not for playing with.
Speaker 1: So you did have Western observers, though, that were figuring
Speaker 1: a lot of this out, that these warstones were indeed
Speaker 1: crafted items, that they were made out of limestone, that
Speaker 1: people would harvest the stone from against stalactites and stalagmites,
Speaker 1: And there's some really interesting takes on this that are
Speaker 1: reported in this paper. In eighteen sixty eight, Missionary Thomas
Speaker 1: Powell wrote that quote this fact is remarkable as an
Speaker 1: indication of thought and design natural to this people. For
Speaker 1: it is not probable that the first inhabitants brought the
Speaker 1: ideas with them. But they found this limestone in the caves,
Speaker 1: saw the use to which it might be put, and
Speaker 1: designed the shape. It is therefore original on their part,
Speaker 1: and in this particular they anticipated the European science of
Speaker 1: the recent century. Now they don't note what he was
Speaker 1: referring to here on the European science thing. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: maybe airships. I'm not sure. They kind of have an
Speaker 1: airship look to him, I guess. Now. On the limestone front,
Speaker 1: nineteenth and twentieth century anthropologists described other warstones that were
Speaker 1: sometimes used that might have been made of other materials
Speaker 1: of basalt of coral, for example. You definitely have examples.
Speaker 2: Of like a black.
Speaker 1: Stone of black war stone, but limestone seems to be
Speaker 1: the primary material. They were highly prized and were used
Speaker 1: exclusively for conflict, and there was apparently a lot of
Speaker 1: conflict on the on the island. You know, this is
Speaker 1: before there were any Westerners even, and part of it
Speaker 1: had to do with you know, droughts would occur and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of skirmishing for available resources. But
Speaker 1: they didn't hunt with them apparently, So birds were hunted
Speaker 1: with what are referred to as bird bows in this paper,
Speaker 1: and fish were hunted with nets. So these were exclusively
Speaker 1: for dealing with human threats or perceived human threats. Warriors
Speaker 1: would carry them in bags or on belts, and if
Speaker 1: they ran out of ammo, it's mentioned that they would
Speaker 1: naturally make use of stones from the ground as well,
Speaker 1: so they weren't above you know, reaching down and grabbing
Speaker 1: whatever was available and throwing that after your special stones
Speaker 1: were extinguished, and then of course after a skirmish or battle,
Speaker 1: you would hopefully be able to go back and pick
Speaker 1: up your AMMO retrieve them. Because other sources mentioned that
Speaker 1: they often they had names, they had histories, histories of violence,
Speaker 1: and so these particular stones would kind of resonate with
Speaker 1: importance to the individual who wielded it.
Speaker 2: So it's interesting that if the stones are you know,
Speaker 2: they're they're manufactured with care, and they're used specifically for
Speaker 2: human conflict instead of hunting. I mean, it makes me
Speaker 2: think about them them having i don't know, some kind
Speaker 2: of special like communicative or signaling power in addition to
Speaker 2: their ability to hit and hurt someone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think so. Here's another great quote. This
Speaker 1: one is if it's in the paper as well, from
Speaker 1: anthropologists Edwin Loewe, who wrote the following about the importance
Speaker 1: of the stones. The individuals quote the fighting stones all
Speaker 1: had special names, and they were put in a kafa
Speaker 1: or girdle, which was plated like a matt. The kafa
Speaker 1: was about six to seven inches wide and was customarily
Speaker 1: four fathoms in length. The third night before the war arrived,
Speaker 1: they wound the kafa around their stomachs and slept in
Speaker 1: this manner during the night, neither eating or drinking. So
Speaker 1: in this paper, the authors here they point out that
Speaker 1: these new weeg In stones, these war stones, there were
Speaker 1: songs about them, and part of their importance also may
Speaker 1: have had to do with the fact that they were
Speaker 1: products of the caves, which were sacred sites with seems
Speaker 1: like connections to the afterlife, And of course this matches
Speaker 1: up with the way caves were viewed by peoples and
Speaker 1: other parts of the world as well. The stones were
Speaker 1: used in ambush attacks, in skirmishes, but also sometimes in
Speaker 1: fights to the death would occur, but it seems like
Speaker 1: a lot of these battles, based on some of the commentaries,
Speaker 1: may not have been typically that lethal. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: does line up with this idea of communication. It's not
Speaker 1: necessarily about going out and absolutely murdering the competition, but
Speaker 1: driving them away from resources that you're looking to control.
Speaker 1: And in the paper, the authors also mostly speculate on
Speaker 1: accuracy here, and part of this was based on accounts
Speaker 1: of other throwing techniques by other advanced stone or club
Speaker 1: throwing groups, but they speculate that high accuracy was likely
Speaker 1: within twenty yards or eighteen meters roughly, but greater distance
Speaker 1: accuracy was certainly possible. And I think this makes sense
Speaker 1: when you consider the likely scenarios in which these stones
Speaker 1: are being used. So yeah, any kind of sort of
Speaker 1: tabletop gaming scenario that you have in your mind should
Speaker 1: probably set aside. It sounds like most of these the
Speaker 1: the encounters these battles would have involved like one individual
Speaker 1: against one another individual or one small group against another.
Speaker 1: It seems like skirmishes and small ambushes were sort of
Speaker 1: the typical encounter context for their usage. So anyway, it's
Speaker 1: a fascinating paper. It's available on jay Store if anyone
Speaker 1: wants to read more. They really get in depth about
Speaker 1: the history of it and various mostly Western commentators who
Speaker 1: are looking at it, and also how the use of
Speaker 1: the stones was disappeared and then the stones went out
Speaker 1: throughout the world and then were to certain degrees brought
Speaker 1: back or studied. Now, this was certainly the most to
Speaker 1: me anyway remarkable account of stone throwing I came across,
Speaker 1: but not the only account of specialized throwing stones. I
Speaker 1: ran across the work of Guy Steibel talking about archaeology
Speaker 1: finds in Jerusalem and the accumulated weapons and AMMO that
Speaker 1: they were finding. This was a paper that came out
Speaker 1: on twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: This is from a.
Speaker 1: Chapter titled Military Equipment in a larger collection of papers
Speaker 1: titled Jerusalem Excavations in the Tiropean Valley. And yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of discussion of things like the things you
Speaker 1: would expect to find, sling stones and so forth, other
Speaker 1: types of projectiles. But then there's an interesting part where
Speaker 1: he mentions he starts talking about what may have been
Speaker 1: stones that were expressly collected and even crafted for throwing.
Speaker 1: Quote three flint balls have a single flat face, unlike
Speaker 1: weights or grinding stones that frequently exhibit multiple flat surfaces.
Speaker 1: They were ideal for heaping on top of battlements, as
Speaker 1: modern experiments have demonstrated. In light of parallels from both
Speaker 1: Palestine and the Roman West, it appears that the use
Speaker 1: of hand thrown stones was much more prevalent than had
Speaker 1: been previously appreciated in modern scholarship.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's interesting. The single flat face. So that would
Speaker 2: be a stone that was modified or selected to have
Speaker 2: a single flat face in order to make it easier
Speaker 2: to stack in a pile, and so it wouldn't roll away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for use on battlements, which I guess also
Speaker 1: the other side of that is, not only do you
Speaker 1: not want your AMMO to roll away, you don't want
Speaker 1: it to roll off the battlements with you know, fatal
Speaker 1: gravity of sense potentially if you're not meaning to drop it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've never thought about this before. I mean, I've certainly
Speaker 1: researched siege scenarios before, where it's very obvious that if
Speaker 1: you have the advantage of battlements, there's a great deal
Speaker 1: you can do without the need for the power of
Speaker 1: a bow. You can just drop things on people underneath.
Speaker 1: And it was dropping things on your besiegers was a
Speaker 1: favorite tactic. Be that you could drop rock, you could
Speaker 1: drop various burning things, oils, et cetera, all manner of things,
Speaker 1: and again with lethal intensity. But this idea of not
Speaker 1: just having stones, but stones that had been to some
Speaker 1: degree altered or manufactured or crafted in order to just
Speaker 1: stack up there so they're ready to go, but they're
Speaker 1: also not rolling out of sight and posing a danger
Speaker 1: to anyone who might just say, be working beneath. Now,
Speaker 1: there are also several interesting cases, probably many many more
Speaker 1: on top of what I'm going to highlight here of
Speaker 1: hand thrown clubs and throwing sticks. So you know, we've
Speaker 1: been talking about throwing rocks, but of course throwing sticks
Speaker 1: is just sort of the other side of the equation here,
Speaker 1: and you find example of these traditions just throughout the
Speaker 1: world on various continents. The throwing stick was used as
Speaker 1: a hunting tool by prehistoric peoples, and we have examples
Speaker 1: of these going back at least some three hundred thousand years.
Speaker 1: One of the problems that this is something that's pointed
Speaker 1: out in a paper I was looking at by Conrad
Speaker 1: at All in nature, ecology and evolution, is that a
Speaker 1: throwing stick is generally a wooden stick, and therefore it's
Speaker 1: not always going to survive to become an artifact that
Speaker 1: can be studied and interpreted, you know, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of years later. But the practice of hunting with thrown
Speaker 1: sticks certainly survived. The ancient Egyptians retained a practice of
Speaker 1: hunting with throwing sticks, and we see this commemorated both
Speaker 1: in their hieroglyphics but also in art. I included an
Speaker 1: image for you to look at here, Joe, where you
Speaker 1: see an individual clearly out by the water side. There
Speaker 1: are all these birds around and in one hand the
Speaker 1: individual was holding up this throwing stick.
Speaker 2: And this is sort of an an induated club of
Speaker 2: sorts that can be thrown.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and I mean we also see the use
Speaker 1: of this in other cultures as well. The hope He
Speaker 1: tribes people of North America also used a type of
Speaker 1: hunting sticks, sometimes referred to as a rabbit stick name
Speaker 1: for the prey. You would go after this with this tool,
Speaker 1: with this weapon. Throwing clubs throwing sticks were also used
Speaker 1: in warfare scenarios and also in war related ceremonies and symbolism.
Speaker 1: Fiji Islanders used beautiful and ceremonial throwing war clubs. These
Speaker 1: were called ulahs, and you can look up examples of these.
Speaker 1: Some key African traditions of throwing clubs are notable as well,
Speaker 1: including the East African rungu as well as the knob
Speaker 1: carry of southern and Eastern Africa. And these were used
Speaker 1: for hunting in war, but also became highly symbolic social
Speaker 1: signifiers as well. Yeah, but I feel like the idea
Speaker 1: that the thrown blunt weapon the throwing club is something
Speaker 1: that is often I guess glossed over in at least
Speaker 1: in the Western mindset, you know, just again coming back
Speaker 1: as always to things like Dungeons and Dragons, where we
Speaker 1: wrap all these fantasy scenarios around the use of ranged
Speaker 1: in melee weaponry. It's easy to dismiss the idea that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that the club also is a potential range weapon, though
Speaker 1: of course, I think Dungeons and Dragons does at least
Speaker 1: have a boomerang in it, And the boomerang is probably
Speaker 1: the most famous, and I guess the most exceptional of
Speaker 1: the throne clubs that humans have developed over the ages.
Speaker 1: The boomerang is exceptional because it's still essentially a throne
Speaker 1: club that kills or injures via blunt force, but it
Speaker 1: is also crafted to spin in just the right way
Speaker 1: and by virtue of its shape, to generate an aerofoil,
Speaker 1: which then increases the distance that it can be thrown.
Speaker 1: So it's not only you know, throne but it also
Speaker 1: begins to take on flight in a fascinating manner.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember being fascinated by the boomerang as far
Speaker 2: back as when I was a little kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And according to Thomas Hewlett, we run into the
Speaker 1: wooden artifact problem again with boomerangs, but convincing boomerangs have
Speaker 1: been discovered as old as ten thousand years, so they've
Speaker 1: been around for quite a while. There are returning boomerangs
Speaker 1: and their non returning boomerangs. Non returning boomerangs were primarily weapons,
Speaker 1: while returning boomerangs were I think more in the recreational
Speaker 1: and symbolic and mythological sphere of things, but could also
Speaker 1: be used apparently in hunting scenarios as some sort of
Speaker 1: decoy for I think, birds of prey, but also as
Speaker 1: a means of frightening and tended bird prey, So they
Speaker 1: weren't without functional uses. And there are a lot of
Speaker 1: things similar to these boomerangs that we find in other
Speaker 1: cultures as well, like the Tamil people had a kind
Speaker 1: of non returning boomerang of their own called a valari,
Speaker 1: and you can look up various images of this as well.
Speaker 1: Has a slight boomerang shape, kind of a tusk like shape.
Speaker 1: Now going back to Thomas Coulett here, he points out
Speaker 1: that broadly speaking, the evolution of range weaponry was initially
Speaker 1: an evolution that had a lot to do with range.
Speaker 1: Thrown weapons greatly increase the range at which human beings
Speaker 1: may inflict harm. But then additional throwing technologies extend that range,
Speaker 1: and this of course increases what we can do with
Speaker 1: them from a hunting standpoint, but also provides advantages over
Speaker 1: other human adversaries, at least under the right conditions. But
Speaker 1: I think these examples show that it's not just a
Speaker 1: matter of abandoning the use of hand thrown projectiles. We
Speaker 1: retain the physical abilities as well as the basic skill sets,
Speaker 1: and we see this reflected in our sports as well
Speaker 1: as our weapon cultures. Hand thrown weapon traditions clearly survived
Speaker 1: the advent of other range weapon technologies and in many
Speaker 1: cases retained important cultural values as well. And there's one
Speaker 1: final wrinkle here too that I almost completely blanked on.
Speaker 1: I almost didn't have anything about this in the notes,
Speaker 1: but then I of course remembered well. As we enter
Speaker 1: into the age of explosives, hand thrown weaponry remains important
Speaker 1: in the form of hand grenades. The more common variety
Speaker 1: of grenade is of course made to be thrown by hand,
Speaker 1: much like a throwing stone, more or less fits in
Speaker 1: the human palm, though we also have the example of
Speaker 1: the German stick hand grenade that was used in the
Speaker 1: first and Second World Wars, and I think adopted by
Speaker 1: some other groups as well during this period. But as
Speaker 1: the name implies, this design features a long handle, and
Speaker 1: these were thrown end over end, much like a hunting
Speaker 1: stick or a thrown club. Now, in both cases, obviously,
Speaker 1: given that this is an item that will explode, you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to be as precise. It's not a
Speaker 1: situation where you have to hit somebody in the head
Speaker 1: with it or in the neck with it every time
Speaker 1: for the weapon to be successful. Though I guess there
Speaker 1: would be situations where you were trying to throw said
Speaker 1: grenade into say a window or some sort of an
Speaker 1: opening and a tank, etc.
Speaker 2: Well, or like in other cases we've looked at to
Speaker 2: compel behavior to drive people away from a particular location.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking about Monty Python many months back,
Speaker 1: and I of course thought of the Holy Hand Grenade
Speaker 1: of Antioch, the magical weapon that is used against the
Speaker 1: Killer Rabbit. And I remember looking around a little bit
Speaker 1: just to see was there anything in use during the
Speaker 1: general historic range that we're talking about here that would
Speaker 1: have been like a grenade, And as I recall, there wasn't, really,
Speaker 1: so I guess there is maybe a potential lag. There's
Speaker 1: this kind of gap between the high age of stone
Speaker 1: throwing and stick throwing as a viable weapon, and then
Speaker 1: the emergence of explosives, which kind of reignites the need
Speaker 1: to be able to throw precisely or at least with
Speaker 1: some degree of precision. You don't want to throw a
Speaker 1: hand grenade imprecisely, but we certainly see with hand grenades
Speaker 1: that like the need for individuals to throw these things
Speaker 1: becomes all the more important. I mean, you look at
Speaker 1: images of say, modern soldiers training to throw hand grenades,
Speaker 1: and there's a definite form to how you do it,
Speaker 1: you know, like there's definite training in place, so precise
Speaker 1: throwing of handheld objects remains a seemingly important part of
Speaker 1: the modern military scenario.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't plan it like this, but it's
Speaker 2: interesting how this series began as us wanting to look
Speaker 2: at examples of non human animals throwing, and ultimately the
Speaker 2: main thing that I'm taking away from it is the
Speaker 2: special role of throwing in the development of human culture,
Speaker 2: in human cognition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I surprised by it as well, because, yeah,
Speaker 1: we started off with the octopus and now here we
Speaker 1: are talking about soldiers with grenades. We have to keep
Speaker 1: the grenades away from the octopuses. By the way, Yes,
Speaker 1: I should also point out I didn't even get into
Speaker 1: the use of sharpened throwing weapons, but obviously that's a
Speaker 1: huge part of weapon culture throughout history as well. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I guess it felt like one step manufacturing
Speaker 1: or materially away from just throwing a stick or throwing
Speaker 1: a rock, So I didn't get into that, But obviously
Speaker 1: there's a lot one could additionally discuss involving hand thrown axes,
Speaker 1: hand thrown darts and knives and so forth. So I
Speaker 1: guess different aerodynamic properties come into play with at least
Speaker 1: some of those weapon designs. All right, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and end it there, but we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from everyone out there if you have thoughts, feedback, experience
Speaker 1: on anything we've discussed here in this episode or the
Speaker 1: previous episodes regarding animals throwing things, humans throwing things, the
Speaker 1: role that being able to throw something may have in
Speaker 1: the development of language, and also just the various weapons
Speaker 1: cultures martial arts that have involved hand thrown objects. If
Speaker 1: you have anything to add about any of that, please
Speaker 1: write in we would love to hear from you. Just
Speaker 1: a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a
Speaker 1: science podcast with core episodes publishing on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Speaker 1: On Mondays we do a listener mail and that's where
Speaker 1: you can write in and we'll discuss some of the
Speaker 1: mail that comes in. On Wednesdays we do a short
Speaker 1: form artifact or monster fact episode, and then on Fridays
Speaker 1: we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about
Speaker 1: a strange film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you
Speaker 2: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 2: on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for
Speaker 2: the future, to share something interesting, or just to say hello,
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact stuff to Blow your
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 3: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're.
Speaker 4: Listening to your favorite shows.
Speaker 3: H