Oceanic wooden spears for comment

[fearn]

Hi Vandoo,

Interesting idea. I think you may be right in some environments. However, in Under the Mountain Wall, which is set in highland west Papua, they report on several battles with wooden spears. Several people get impaled, and with fairly primitive treatment, they manage to survive. Note that the spears in these battles were not barbed, and also they were well up in the highlands, not on the coast.

There are also stories from the Mojave Indians in California of warriors fighting on when they looked like porcupines from the arrows sticking out of them. They used weak bows, and the arrows apparently didn't penetrate deeply. Some of those warriors survived their wounds.

Basically, I think we need to be careful about theorizing. There's evidence that people can (under some circumstances) survive getting impaled, and others in drier environments will fight with many points in them. Doesn't mean that it didn't happen, but it does mean we should be careful.

F