Ancient hunting methods

[Grab the Gauge]

The oldest, most effective and longest enduring method of hunting animals was the spear. There are two primary ways of hunting with a spear. One way is to toss the spear from cover (such as brush or from the side of a cliff). This is primarily effective only against large animals. An elephant dating to over 200,000 YBP was found in England in association with a wooden spear and it was presumed this animal had been killed by it. It would have been a rare event, for an animal to be killed in this manner. It's difficult to approach animals and get close enough to throw with accuracy.

The second, far more profitable and successful way of spear hunting was to intercept and entrap the animal in a pound, or a river, or to drive them over a cliff where they would die or be maimed. The Indians built pounds for buffalo, antelope and whitetail deer out of stones, driftwood and dead wood. Animals would be driven in to these enclosures and speared. A whole herd might be slaughtered this way. The Inuit were famous for intercepting caribiou at river crossings in their skin canoes. A spear would be tossed from the canoe, and the animal hauled to shore.

Indians were known to chase animals down in deep snow in snowshoes where they could be clubbed or speared.

The bow and arrow was always a useless piece of shit that was never an important part of the repertoire of primitive hunters. Asen Balikci writes on page 42 of The Netsilik Eskimo that "The Netsilik were not very good archers. A record of ten archers showed that scarecely any one of them could hit the mark with anything like certainty at a range of about sixty feet, and it is difficult to get so near to Caribou. (Rasmussen 1931:170). Netsilik archers therefore did not kill many caribou, except when a large migrating herd was encountered in spring. When in large formations, the caribou seemed less fearful and were easier to approach."

A collection of target records of the Californian Indian Ishi revealed him to be an inaccurate archer. The Blackfoot word for the bow was nitsi-năma, meaning "useless weapon". Anyone who has ever fiddled with, much less manufactured this infuriating and useless weapon knows that it is a truly worthless piece of shit and an abomination. Whenever this item was used, it was most frequently in conjunction with a pound.

The bola weapon was known to the Inuit and to the Patagonians, who used it to ensare birds and guanaco, respectively. One bola stone was found at the Quina Neanderthal site in France, although such devices aren't found anywhere else in Europe. The Selk'nam people are known to have abandoned the bow and the firearm in favor of the bola.


The oldest conclusive proof for spear hunting is found at Schoeningen in Germany, dating to over 200,000 years old (fire hardened wooden lances). The oldest evidence for complex projectile technology (either the bow or the atlatl) is from Abri du Maras, France, and dates to approximately 90,000 ybp.

[Grab the Gauge]

"An old-time way of killing buffalo was by chasing
them in winter over a steep bluff into a deep snow-
drift. As they floundered there they could be speared
or beaten to death. A few times I was in that kind of
hunt. I heard old people tell of having used snow-
shoes to go after buffalo, but I never saw any of that
kind of hunting. "

"I have helped in the chasing of antelope bands
over a cliff. In the Black Hills was one special place
where we worked for our meat in that manner. The
creek near by was called Antelope creek. The first
time I went there an old man accompanied me. We
located ourselves in hiding near the base of the cliff,
with women and old people and children. Two young
men rounded up a herd and drove them over for us.
Many of them were killed or got broken legs. We
clubbed to death the injured ones. "

https://archive.org/details/warriorwhofought027166mbp

[Oneeye]

Bows are still a fun way to hunt.