How did early humans use sharpened rocks to bring down megafauna 13,000 years ago? Did they throw spears tipped with carefully crafted, razor-sharp rocks called Clovis points? Did they surround and jab mammoths and mastodons? Or did they scavenge wounded animals, using Clovis points as a versatile tool to harvest meat and bones for food and supplies?
UC Berkeley archaeologists say the answer might be none of the above.
Instead, researchers say humans may have braced the butt of their pointed spears against the ground and angled the weapon upward in a way that would impale a charging animal. The force would have driven the spear deeper into the predator's body, unleashing a more damaging blow than even the strongest prehistoric hunters would have been capable of on their own.
how are you tricking an animal into charging straight into a tree or something?
I'm guessing you can do the old trick of lying them flat and then jerking them up at the perfect moment with rope. Or as the article says, have balls of steel and let the animal charge you, planting the spear at the very last moment
maybe it was a pike wall like in combat
I think what they are getting at is that an animal tends to not want to run into a spear, so I'm thinking there might be some trickery involved such as concealing the spear or rapidly bringing it to bear