NEANDERTHALS INVENTED PROJECTILE TECHNOLOGY

**~~Lehman Lifer~~** · 06-12-2014, 07:15 AM

A most common defamation of the Neanderthals is that they did not have projectile technology. People who assert this claim WILLFULLY IGNORE new and old established evidence that it was Neanderthals who first invented both the atlatl and the bow and arrow.

NEANDERTHALS BRAIDING CORDAGE AND LAUNCHING PROJECTILES 90,000 YEARS AGO

http://www.researchgate.net/publicat..._Maras_France)

NEANDERTHAL BONE BOW AND ARROW POINT FROM B1 SALGITTER-LEBENSTEDT, GERMANY

Another unequivocal piece of evidence for tool production is provided by a bone point with a length of 6,3 cm, made either of a mammoth or a rhino long bone. The bone fragment was shaped into a triangular form as shown by the abraded distal edges of the artefact. Notching of the distal end occurred in order to produce a winged base. Proximally, modification by smoothing resulted in a blunt conically pointed tip.
It has been repeatedly stated that the bone point represents an intrusional element within the Salzgitter-Lebenstedt assemblage as this artefact should indicate an unexpectedly evolved technique for the Middle Palaeolithic period (e.g., Müller-Beck, 1966). Judging from the depositional setting of the site there are no indications to support this suggestion. The findyielding Middle Palaeolithic horizon is covered by a substantial sediment sequence and Upper Palaeolithic levels are not known from the upper part of the geological sequence.

Bone tools: Some modified bone tools have been described already 1952 and in more detail in 1982 as a part of an excellent monograph by Tode. Today, the bone tool assemblage consists of 23 intentionally modified bones (pointed elephant ribs and fibulae), a modified antler and a triangular bone point (Gaudzinski 1999). It was not before Gaudzinski`s publication, that this fact was internationally recognized.

The renewed analysis of the faunal remains by Gaudzinski finally showed that Neanderthals were logistically organized hunters that exploited reindeer in exactly the same manner as the Ahrensburgians who recolonized Northern Germany about 40,000 years later.

If Tode`s results would have been published in English and at the “right” moment; they would have caused a sensation in the Prehistoric community. But they were widely ignored. Beside linguistic problems and the fact, that the German Prehistoric Archeology was internationally compromised after WW II, the data did not fit into the paradigm that Neanderthals were intellectual challenged Scavengers.

Neanderthal exploitation of bird's feathers (for arrow points and ornamentation)

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0045927