I've Her Son
06-14-2014, 01:16 PM
Donsmaps Website
http://donsmaps.com/images26/screwthreadstopperssm.jpg
These are the most delightful tools I have ever seen. They are from the Perigordian IV, which is 30 000 BP to 28 000 BP.
They are called 'goat skin corks' which have a hand cut screw thread!
http://donsmaps.com/images30/stoppersm.jpg
I was staggered when I saw them, I was looking for something else, and came across them by chance. You don't expect to find a screw thread in the Palaeolithic!
It would be a great way to get a watertight seal for a wineskin or waterskin. One should never underestimate the ingenuity of the human race. It was a palaeolithic Einstein who came up with that one - and a tour de force for the artisan who actually made it! Think of the special tool that would have been made in order to get it perfect….. It looks like a teamwork job to me, somebody to think of it, a group of people to create the tools necessary, and decide on the materials - wood? bone? ivory? and a long process in order to make it, ironing out the inevitable problems as they occurred.
It also indicates a large measure of affluence. People who live hand to mouth don't come up with a whimsical invention like this, and don't have the time, resources or energy to see the project through.
They are from two different sites, but the same time period. My bet is that both were made at one site, and traded to another. No two people come up with an intellectual leap like that independently, at the same time. It had to have been made by the same artisan or group of artisans, for sure. What is interesting, however, is that this was invented, but never became popular except in one general area at one time, about 30 000 years ago. I am reminded of the invention of ceramics at Dolni Vestonice, which flourished for a short time, then disappeared for tens of thousands of years.
The one on the left is from Roc de Combe-Capelle, and on the right from Fourneau du Diable. They are both in the Dordogne area, about 90 kilometres apart.
Notice that they are both right hand threads, showing that right handedness in humans has been around for a long time - though we knew that anyway because of the differences in arms on the right and the left of skeletons. Mungo Man had a wonky right elbow, either from using a spear thrower or a spear. It is given as evidence of a spear thrower 40 000 years ago, but it could just as well have been from throwing a spear.
The material of both is ivory. Hard to work, but it would be very durable. You are subjecting that thing to a lot of stress. Brass would have been better still……
Note that what follows is my version of how to use the stopper, not something that I know works, I've never actually made or used the complete set of equipment needed. But this thought experiment would be a good start, I reckon.
If I were going to make the whole shebang, I'd start with the complete hide of an animal such as an ibex. Pigs are good, I've drunk wine in spain (very ordinary wine I might add) that was stored in a complete pig's hide. I don't know how they did that, I assume they decided what they were going to do with the hide before they started, and made the smallest incisions possible to get out the squishy bits. The one I saw had only stumps of skin at the legs and neck, tied down firmly as you would expect. The advantage of a larger animal is that, of course, you can store a lot more liquid all at once.
OK, so imagine we've got a skin that is waterproof, an ibex skin say, with an outlet, let's say the front right leg of an ibex. This is a relatively large orifice, but it has a lot of loose skin flapping around. The other openings are folded over and tied down. One of these can be the filling hole, when ready for use as a water container you could untie it, fill the skin, then retie it.
You then take the femur (thighbone) of an aurochs or ibex, or rabbit, whatever you like, they are hollow because they are the repository of marrow, and are close to cylindrical.
Or a human thighbone if you aren't squeamish. Maybe that of your favourite aunt or your worst enemy.
Wood could be used, but it would probably split open very quickly, or immediately, probably, because of the stresses. That stopper is a wedge which would only be resisted by something very tough, like a femur. There are firewood splitters that actually work on the conical thread principle.
If available, I'd use an ibex femur, they average about 18 mm (female) to 22 mm (male) in diameter (Fernandez et al., 2006) at the smallest section of the diaphysis, the shaft of the femur. The lower, thickest part of those two screw threads is about 10 mm, so an ibex femur would be ideal.
All you'd do is circumscribe the bone at two convenient places near the middle where you are going to snap the rest of the bone off, either end.
Then circumscribe a few shallow (at least two) grooves in between the two deeper grooves. This provides a good method for securing the bone in the next step. Snap off the two ends at the two deeper grooves.
Wrap the loose skin of the wineskin at the orifice left unsealed around the bone cylinder, and make the junction waterproof by tying tightly with cords at the two (or more) grooves. This will form the pouring spout of the wineskin.
From a smaller animal, carefully remove the skin of a suitable part of the femur, but in a cylindrical state, not cut. Though I suspect you'd get away with just a rectangular piece of hide. I don't think it is critical that you have a cylindrical unbroken piece of hide, so long as what you had was soft.
Now you can start.
You have selected the cylindrical bit of skin so that it is about the same diameter, maybe a bit more, as the hole left by the marrow, which you have scooped out. Put this skin inside the thighbone.
Fill the 'wineskin' with water, (as above, you could instead use one of the other larger orifices in the hide, which you then fold over and tie down) and screw in the stopper.
The skin inside, between the stopper and the bone, forms a gasket so that water doesn't escape down the thread. The inside of the bone is compressible to a certain extent, and will soon conform to the thread of your stopper.
You need the screw thread to be conical because it allows you to use the same ivory stopper in a number of different sized femurs, and in any case, the conical shape means you can get the stopper really tight. The further in you screw the stopper, the tighter it presses against the inside of the femur. As the inside of the femur compresses with time ( it will! ) you just screw the stopper a little bit tighter. You might notice that the stopper goes a little further in every month or so for a while until the inside of the femur, and the leather cylinder 'washer' is compressed as far as it is going to go.
The threaded parts of the stoppers are about 35 - 40 mm (1.5 inches) long, the handle on the right is 40 mm (1.5 inches) long, the one on the left is 50 mm (2 inches) long. They are only small, about 90 mm (3.5 inches) long all up.
Photo: Lwoff (1962) after Peyrony
http://donsmaps.com/images26/screwthreadstopperssm.jpg
These are the most delightful tools I have ever seen. They are from the Perigordian IV, which is 30 000 BP to 28 000 BP.
They are called 'goat skin corks' which have a hand cut screw thread!
http://donsmaps.com/images30/stoppersm.jpg
I was staggered when I saw them, I was looking for something else, and came across them by chance. You don't expect to find a screw thread in the Palaeolithic!
It would be a great way to get a watertight seal for a wineskin or waterskin. One should never underestimate the ingenuity of the human race. It was a palaeolithic Einstein who came up with that one - and a tour de force for the artisan who actually made it! Think of the special tool that would have been made in order to get it perfect….. It looks like a teamwork job to me, somebody to think of it, a group of people to create the tools necessary, and decide on the materials - wood? bone? ivory? and a long process in order to make it, ironing out the inevitable problems as they occurred.
It also indicates a large measure of affluence. People who live hand to mouth don't come up with a whimsical invention like this, and don't have the time, resources or energy to see the project through.
They are from two different sites, but the same time period. My bet is that both were made at one site, and traded to another. No two people come up with an intellectual leap like that independently, at the same time. It had to have been made by the same artisan or group of artisans, for sure. What is interesting, however, is that this was invented, but never became popular except in one general area at one time, about 30 000 years ago. I am reminded of the invention of ceramics at Dolni Vestonice, which flourished for a short time, then disappeared for tens of thousands of years.
The one on the left is from Roc de Combe-Capelle, and on the right from Fourneau du Diable. They are both in the Dordogne area, about 90 kilometres apart.
Notice that they are both right hand threads, showing that right handedness in humans has been around for a long time - though we knew that anyway because of the differences in arms on the right and the left of skeletons. Mungo Man had a wonky right elbow, either from using a spear thrower or a spear. It is given as evidence of a spear thrower 40 000 years ago, but it could just as well have been from throwing a spear.
The material of both is ivory. Hard to work, but it would be very durable. You are subjecting that thing to a lot of stress. Brass would have been better still……
Note that what follows is my version of how to use the stopper, not something that I know works, I've never actually made or used the complete set of equipment needed. But this thought experiment would be a good start, I reckon.
If I were going to make the whole shebang, I'd start with the complete hide of an animal such as an ibex. Pigs are good, I've drunk wine in spain (very ordinary wine I might add) that was stored in a complete pig's hide. I don't know how they did that, I assume they decided what they were going to do with the hide before they started, and made the smallest incisions possible to get out the squishy bits. The one I saw had only stumps of skin at the legs and neck, tied down firmly as you would expect. The advantage of a larger animal is that, of course, you can store a lot more liquid all at once.
OK, so imagine we've got a skin that is waterproof, an ibex skin say, with an outlet, let's say the front right leg of an ibex. This is a relatively large orifice, but it has a lot of loose skin flapping around. The other openings are folded over and tied down. One of these can be the filling hole, when ready for use as a water container you could untie it, fill the skin, then retie it.
You then take the femur (thighbone) of an aurochs or ibex, or rabbit, whatever you like, they are hollow because they are the repository of marrow, and are close to cylindrical.
Or a human thighbone if you aren't squeamish. Maybe that of your favourite aunt or your worst enemy.
Wood could be used, but it would probably split open very quickly, or immediately, probably, because of the stresses. That stopper is a wedge which would only be resisted by something very tough, like a femur. There are firewood splitters that actually work on the conical thread principle.
If available, I'd use an ibex femur, they average about 18 mm (female) to 22 mm (male) in diameter (Fernandez et al., 2006) at the smallest section of the diaphysis, the shaft of the femur. The lower, thickest part of those two screw threads is about 10 mm, so an ibex femur would be ideal.
All you'd do is circumscribe the bone at two convenient places near the middle where you are going to snap the rest of the bone off, either end.
Then circumscribe a few shallow (at least two) grooves in between the two deeper grooves. This provides a good method for securing the bone in the next step. Snap off the two ends at the two deeper grooves.
Wrap the loose skin of the wineskin at the orifice left unsealed around the bone cylinder, and make the junction waterproof by tying tightly with cords at the two (or more) grooves. This will form the pouring spout of the wineskin.
From a smaller animal, carefully remove the skin of a suitable part of the femur, but in a cylindrical state, not cut. Though I suspect you'd get away with just a rectangular piece of hide. I don't think it is critical that you have a cylindrical unbroken piece of hide, so long as what you had was soft.
Now you can start.
You have selected the cylindrical bit of skin so that it is about the same diameter, maybe a bit more, as the hole left by the marrow, which you have scooped out. Put this skin inside the thighbone.
Fill the 'wineskin' with water, (as above, you could instead use one of the other larger orifices in the hide, which you then fold over and tie down) and screw in the stopper.
The skin inside, between the stopper and the bone, forms a gasket so that water doesn't escape down the thread. The inside of the bone is compressible to a certain extent, and will soon conform to the thread of your stopper.
You need the screw thread to be conical because it allows you to use the same ivory stopper in a number of different sized femurs, and in any case, the conical shape means you can get the stopper really tight. The further in you screw the stopper, the tighter it presses against the inside of the femur. As the inside of the femur compresses with time ( it will! ) you just screw the stopper a little bit tighter. You might notice that the stopper goes a little further in every month or so for a while until the inside of the femur, and the leather cylinder 'washer' is compressed as far as it is going to go.
The threaded parts of the stoppers are about 35 - 40 mm (1.5 inches) long, the handle on the right is 40 mm (1.5 inches) long, the one on the left is 50 mm (2 inches) long. They are only small, about 90 mm (3.5 inches) long all up.
Photo: Lwoff (1962) after Peyrony