Stone age people made hundreds of these...why?
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Hundreds of perforated batons have been found across western and central Europe. Typically they are made from Antler, but this one from Hohle Fels is made of Mammoth Ivory.
What were they used for? Ritual or something practical? I spoke to Prof. Nicholas Conard of the University of Tubingen to discuss his idea that they were used to produce rope.
Sources:
Nicholas J. Conard, Veerle Rots ,Rope making in the Aurignacian of Central Europe more than 35,000 years ago.Sci. Adv.10,eadh5217(2024).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adh5217
Lucas, C., Galway-Witham, J., Stringer, C.B. et al. Investigating the use of Paleolithic perforated batons: new evidence from Gough’s Cave (Somerset, UK). Archaeol Anthropol Sci 11, 5231-5255 (2019). doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00...
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Just wondering - why it has to be either or (sacred or secular) . . . Why not infuse "magic" into every day objects, to make them more effective? Consider some people have objects christened, such as boats (well, at one time anyway). You can have your home blessed by a cleric, but it's still serves a largely practical purpose in your life.
God bless, has anyone asked the Inuit or Khoisan or San or other groups what they would use them for…….or if they recognize them……god bless
@@gaslitworldf.melissab2897 Their world was different from ours in that 'religion' was not separated from real life. It was all intertwined and they never thought of it being 'religious'. In fact, our concept of 'religion' is only some 5000 years old. You only have to take a look at tribal communities, like Papuans or Amazone and maybe even Africa to get some understanding of how it works.
Do they have Stegosaurus smell? Otherwise dilophosaurus will do.
Great video Stefan
In the culture of the Basque people there is a rital baton called a 'Makila'.
Funny how when i was in school i hated studying and learning, now that im an old man, all i want to do is absorb information. I love your channel
I loved learning since young age and I will never understand people that want to keep working tedious jobs forever because they're afraid they'll be bored in retirement. How can anyone be bored when there's such a vast amount of knowledge and languages to learn?!
A dispassionate teacher can suck the life out of any topic.
Ah, but now you get to choose when to learn and what to learn.
You just grew an internet addiction.
@@omarsabih I like listening to this stuff when I'm at the gym. It's better than gaming all day I suppose
They're obviously for measuring spaghetti.
Certainly true if they’d been discovered in Italy!
I'm Italian, I can indeed confirm 😂
Beat me to it.
No, no I saw the vintage BBC documentary on the spaghetti growers of Italy and the terrible spaghetti blight they suffered years ago. You don’t need to measure it, it grows to a certain length naturally.
When did Italians steal noodles from China and call it spaghetti and linguine? Marco Polo?
When aliens find the toothbrushes with holes drilled in them by ultralight backpackers they are gonna be so confused
Kinda what I thought right away too lol
Yea anything minimalist do is out of the norm but very practical
Lol, if someone finds my boxes of DIY alcohol stove testing parts they are gonna think I was some weird tin can alchemist
Wouldnt a true ultralight backpacker just forego the toothbrush altogether tho? 🤔
“Sometimes we eat a sandwich, sometimes we build the Taj Mahal” might be my new favourite Stefan milo quote
the ones with 3 or 4 holes were used in making cordage or rope, the ones with 1 hole were arrow shaft or spear shaft straighteners the green shaft would be heated over fire and the tool would be used as a fulcrum to straighten the shaft
U beat me to it. We made rope in boy scouts with those.
@@EdwardPike they are still used today in the remote areas of south america and in the remote himalayan regions where they still join many villages to rebuild the rope suspension bridges
Story checks out. The one hole variation for arrows makes sense because you would need a lot of strength to draw the arrow through it. Requiring a strong material (bone stronger than wood) as well as a good size hand piece to hold on to. Thus there being only one hole.
Yeah, noted the same and just went "huh???" when this is talked about as a mystery or something.
@@JonnoPlays the larger ones found in the burial find are very large seeming to indicate that they were used for spear shaft straighteners , the atl atl has been in use for 30,000 years or so , but a straight shaft was critical for accuracy,
My wife, a fiber artist, immediately took the idea of a “diz” for aligning fibers, and with multiple holes also thought of cord or rope making. Also sometimes used for stripping the outer layers off of young branches or fibrous sticks for whatever…straightening or stripping or both.
The second I saw the one with four holes, I thought of "card weaving" which is 100% worth looking into if you have never heard of it. By using different colors in the holes of the cards, and numbers of them, woven fabric can be made with really intricate patterns. Mostly used for making things like belts and trims by the Vikings if I'm remembering it correctly, or May be the Celts. I don't really recall.
I was thinking the ones with one hole might be for straightening shafts for arrows or small spears, but I don't know how well they would be suited to that task. Rope or other cord making makes sense for the ones with multiple holes, but I love the idea of them being used for weaving like card weaving. Maybe they were used for both? Nothing says a tool can only ever be used one way, like how I have used screwdrivers for several things that had nothing to do with screws. 🤔
Does she use diz knots when she is stripping?
I'm sorry.
My thought it was to make rope.
Fascinating topic! I also immediately thought of tools for spinning and plying fiber. The ones in the Prince’s burial, with a single hole in a wide paddle-like circle, and the shaft tapering to a point at the other end, made me think of drop-spindles. Some of the narrow ones could be used as shuttles for making nets. Or they could be used like a turnbuckle, to tighten a cord that has stretched. You could use it as a handle for pulling a rope or cord, or maybe in building wattle-and-daub houses or fences. I hope these researchers can find out more about these things!
I’m curious - were they able to identify the type of plant fibers in the holes? I’m thinking of nettles, flax, willow, cedar bark. Native Americans along the Pacific Northwest coast used fine but tough roots of Sitka Spruce trees where they became exposed along banks of estuaries to weave baskets, hats, cloaks etc.
Cordage making is one of the most essential tasks to survival. Hanging food, making shelter, etc. there are infinite uses for it. Even if they weren’t using it to transport food it would need to be hung to dry.
I wholeheartedly believe that rope/string technology is the unsung hero of the human adventure. A popular book on the use of rope from prehistory to the space age would be a banger.
thats why sailing ships, especially the peak time right before the first steel warships that changed the game, are MY favourite goto topic.
woodwork,yes very impressive. but the rope involved, its just nuts. a ship half the size of an passenger airplane had 3-5 times more rope used on the ships than the airplane uses in cables today.
Which human being is able to do more than the standard shoe knot today? mostly sailors or job related stuff, but thats it.
everything useful was made out of rope not even 300 years ago. Horses and ropes ruled the world.
the sheer amount of knot techniques to make the mast +sail hold in the winds and storms of the ocean, all the ropework to get up into the masts. mezmerizing.
AND think about "Castaway" with Tom Hanks. he was totally fucked and stuck on this island, till he figured out what fibres to use to make rope and he was able to knot his raft together to give it a proper go. this is what makes this movie stand out, in castaway scenarios, cause it shows the human evolution from making fire to former peak technology, rope making and sailing.
I think they were also handles for the rope. So the weight of the animal with the rope against their skin wouldnt hurt their hands.
You should write it!!
And let's not forget the magical plant preferred by thousands of years of rope makers and sailors
Try “Women’s Work - the first 2000 years”. Not a feminist manifesto, but a work on String and fiber arts. Who needs to tie things up, make bags, etc. with women doing lots of the day to day work of gathering being able to bundle things up means that much more bunches of grass, twigs, etc? E. Wayland Barber PhD
I think in the modern day we forget how vital rope would have been in those times. No nails or screws, limited glue, extremely labour intensive material cutting. Rope or cordage is a construction material, used for tents/tarps, and many things I can't even think of. This is the most reasonable hypothesis I've ever heard for the batons.
Also, a single hole baton might be used by one individual. Embedded in the ground it could be used to create tension and feed the cord material evenly during braiding.
Thanks so much for discussing this new info. The batons have been such a mystery. This may not be _the_ answer, but it is the first really reasonable one I've heard.
Braiding long lengths of hide cordage comes to mind.
Coming from an Inuit perspective, a lot of our traditional cordage was hide. A large animal like a walrus or bearded seal is skinned in a spiral, it’s hide effective unwound and then dried into leather to be used in lashings or other applications other places where fibre rope would be used.
Using a few of these assist in drying out the hide to prevent rot comes to mind. Thread it through the eyes, hammer it into the moss on a sunny and windy place and you’ll have reliable cordage in a few days.
Add in that this was made of _mammoth_ ivory and you have a huge supply of hide for lashings at hand.
cordage is definitely among top 10 of important things to primitive living, cutting tools, firemaking, storage containers, shelter (clothing) are others, and yhey are more or less intertwined, having cordage makes the others easier, cutting tool nakes the others easier, fire...
Letting my imagination run free, I wondered how much a mammoth hide would weigh. The stone tools of that time were very sharp if knapped properly. I am certain that individuals had skills for any task at hand and probably "specialized" in tool making of each sort. Deer hide can make excellent clothing, while hides of thicker properties would make good foot-ware and so on. The materials used to make a rope would probably not survive the centuries, but the tool used to make the rope would survive longer. Flint knapping and shaft selection or modification may not have been done by the same individual, while affixing the "blade" to the shaft may have required another individual with that specialty, and actual hunting another skill set. This would give the death of an individual significant meaning to the group and may have lead to belief systems to pass on the knowledge to the survivors. Women were very central to these skill sets being passed down as they probably maintained the camp while the men were hunting and had the time and opportunity to pass on the skills. Just some thoughts.
@@joshuahadams I really like this explanation. The primitive knurling around the holes could have helped keep it taught as well.
@@joshuahadamsI think that you’re right. I noticed that the batons included in the grave all had a sharpened pointy end that suits them to be driven into the Earth to hold them in place while stringing cordage or strips of animal hide between them to dry strings out or straighten them or something like that.
I wondered if my message had ever reached you, I am now over the moon with this video! I knew you'd make this subject justice: wonderful interview with the author, very insightful theories, video footage of the actual rope making demonstration (!) and tons of very interesting and positive comments! I've never been happier about mine getting buried: let's solve this mistery together people, let's reclaim our ancient knowledge! Thanks a lot Stefan!
Cheers
Victor
Excellent article to bring to Stefan. Thank you for being the spark that ignited this excellent video.
Nice work bud.
Thanks from me too. I love how he looks at recent (Innuit) practices to shine a light. I hope they teach that archaeology school.
I think you've got it: fiber-making tool enormously useful: rope, mats, nets, food drying out of reach; magine women sitting around making cord for many uses; children, men sitting around doing the same. Handy fiber and as one person pointed out, also for measuring spaghetti.
Time Team made a replica of this tool with a single hole (Series 6 Episode 4 - Cooper's Hope, Cheddar Gorge), its a very good watch for anyone interested in seeing one in use. While they did not try to make rope through a single hole, they did find it worked wonderfully as a handle/winch for rope with extra grip and leverage compared to using hands alone.
I have no idea what it is called in English but I have seen old Swedish tools for making rope and they look like this. If you google images for "repslagning verktyg" you can see a few of them. Some of them are round, not rectangular. Pieces with only one hole can be used for making a simple ribbon weaving called "brickbandsvävning".
You're making me think of spindle whorls; little decorated clay beads from meso America and Africa, which are used for yarn making, I believe.
It is interesting to see that some of the holes on the tools have pegs in them…
I just googled Swedish Ropee making tool.And the object is the exact same as what we just saw
When they all have rotating pegs in them, but yes, this is before the realization that you could do that, so it totally makes sense that this is an earlier version.
@@RegebroRepairs Perhaps some of the prehistoric ones did have pegs in them. Maybe the spiral scored lines in the holes were for screwing in the pegs - you would just have to be careful which way you rotated it. Or perhaps some were used as cranks to add twist, as in some of the photos of repslagning. We can’t assume that prehistoric people hadn’t figure out some of these things over the millennia.
They are shaft straighteners. I've used them for 60 years making atlatals and arrow shafts. You slide the batton on the shaft, add heat to area to straighten., put leverage on the spot with the batton handle. I learned it from an old man at the Qualla boundary Cherokee reservation in North Carolina.
ai, pin this
That is almost certainly incorrect, for the simple reason that bows were not invented at the time these tools were used. There's also the issue that it would be far less effort to find a sapling, cut it down, denude it, and you have a quick and easy spear shaft that is straight enough for throwing or stick-throwing purposes. Plus, presumably the Palaeolithic tool-user was sophisticated enough to smooth out kinks using something similar to planing and lathing, both of which are conceptually simple and work really well on green wood.
Indeed one could be used as a shaft straightener or to apply force to something but not limited to an arrow tool. It seems like a handy device, almost like a multitool Swiss army knife. A rope maker, a rope anchor or hand hold, tensioner, applying pressure around arrowheads for wrapping or applying some kind of glue. If they were very common, they could have been used a a form of currency that could easily be traded or stockpiled. Possibly used in one of the many ways of making fire, just a handy thing to have that was valuable and readily used by almost everyone.
If you ever tried to make a spear shaft from a sapling you should know that as soon.as it starts to dry it warps, twist and bends in all directions. A 3/4 inch shaft is difficult to straighten without some focused leverage. The baton allows you to put pressure in the exact spot where need. Try making a straight spear with and without the baton a d you will quickly adapt it.
@@charlesmoffitt4811 Notice I said 'straight enough'. You don't need a perfectly straight spear to be functional for hunting, and a cut sapling will stay very straight. I have in fact, made walking sticks from saplings, which is fairly analogous. Plus, early humans would no doubt be intelligent enough to dry their wood evenly by controlling its moisture content (and is there anything better for that than living in a cave?)
I remember about 25 odd years ago, Time Team went to the Cheddar caves to look at a Mesolithic site; and in a bit where Phil Harding was trying to make either leather straps or rope he used a baton with a single hole & a couple of the academics who had come to watch were shocked that these sticks had a practical use.
ive made string and twine by hand from cotton fibers off a cotton plant near my house. I think i can explain the use of one and two hole battons, from the standpoint of "horse sense"
for one hole batons: makes the first two strand twist. rather than holding the end of the strands in your teeth as you roll/twist the first strands between your index and thumb (left counterclockwise, right hand clockwise), you could feed the end through the hole of the baton, and stand on it, to keep tension on the twine as you work it. that makes it easier to work the material.
once you have a good length of clockwise spun two strand twine and counterclockwise spun two strand twine, made with a one hole baton, switch to a two hole baton, to mate the twine together. you would likely tie off the twine to a post, and twist the two hole baton to mate the twine with a consistent number of turns per inch.
lol at “mysterious oblong artifacts”. Hmmmmm
lol me too XD
Not as a pestle for grinding up food?
Yep, my first thought...
Basic needs are eternal.
@@thePronto Some of them yes, but others...
Arrow straighteners are just a hole in a piece of flat material. You heat the arrow and use the hole to apply torque to the arrow at a precise position. The serrations would help grip the shaft in the required spot and help apply torque. Different holes for different sized shafts? The Prince burial perforated instruments were a good handle and hole combo - theres a reason current spanners are ergonomically shaped like they are.
I thought the same thing. But this is way before arrows.
@@buffalobob2002 So spear or atlatl shafts.
Shaft straightener is the first thing that came to my mind.
@@buffalobob2002who really knows when bows and arrows were first made ? Maybe they were made much earlier than archaeologists thought. In general, people seem to have been more advanced than thought. Think of the pyramids, the Stonehenge, the preshistoric temple in present day turkey.
@@siddharthshekhar909yeah, we know *at least* how far back archery goes, but a wooden bow isn't likely to last 80k years
With one whole, its used as a leverage tool to put torque on something. To twist or turn something.
The rifling inside the whole helped to allowed the tool to move along the length of the material as its being twisted. Imagine it filled with grass. If its a smooth hole, it will just spin. Add thise spiral grooves and it will grab and twist the grass as well as slide along the length in one direction. Like a nut on the threads of a bolt kind of.
I believe the batons could’ve acted as a sort of “multi-tool” for the prehistoric peoples. The shape, the different material, the different number of holes, etc, etc. They could be used for everything from straightening wooden shafts, rope making, cracking bone for marrow, flint napping, fishhooks, stripping bark, hammering, securing axe heads, jewelry making, the list goes on.
I for one am impressed with stefans barber. Who managed to give him three distinct looks in the same video. Shout out to him/her!
tent string tensioners come to mind as well. tarps, traps, sails....
Spot on 😉 I think
Yes! I was thinking something along those lines. But why would they bury someone with something like that? I love and hate the mysteries of the ancient past 😅
My first thought when i started watching, started feeling dumb reading the other explanations until i found you, i suppose the theory has some weight then
@@hunterG60kif they believed that the buried person takes with them the objects in the grave to another life/realm, then they would use those for their tents, sails or such
Backpacks. Storage. Climbing...
The video of the experiment certainly looks convincing to me. By twisting individual strands one way and plying them together in the other direction, you create something that can withstand an incredible amount of force. I certainly think that the batons with multiple holes could be used for this purpose.
Essential tools for any hunter/gatherer! A 3-holed stick for making rope, and a 1-holed stick for looping rope through so you have a handle to drag or carry game for miles, like a stringer of fish or a horse
Also they can be Shaft Straighteners with one hole. They're used to straighten shafts of wood for arrow or spear. Quick mind blowing fact: At least Clovis culture had the ingenuity to have a hunting weapon system of having a reusable spear. The end of the spear had a hole drilled into it and they carried several detachable spear points that they could stab with and then replace the spear point with another one. That way they only had to carry one spear and several spear points. And in making those they used a shaft straightener. At least that's the story for the Clovis site in Southern Arizona I visited. Very cool video Stefan.
Single holes can still be used for rope as well, you just have to use more than one together for however many plies you needed.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper yes. I can totally see how that would work too. When I saw in the video the one hole one it reminded me of the shaft straightener recovered at the Santa Cruz River site in Southern Az. But after seeing the whole video I was like oh yeah rope. That makes sense. But i left the shaft straightener post because it's interesting. thanks for chiming in. appreciated.
See dart/arrow straighteners: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower
It's entirely possible that some had more than one use. Why carry a shaft straightener and basically the same thing for making cordage if one tool can do both? Although, the spiral texture inside might not be the best for arrow shafts, you probably wouldn't want them gouging the surface of a freshly made shaft.
El Senor, you linked to an atlatl, not a shaft straightener...those are generally rounded rocks with a groove to allow someone to press on a heated shaft until it's cool without burning themselves in the process. Although, keeping with the same theme as above, one could theoretically produce a shaft straightener, cordage tool, and atlatl all in one.
Except for the twist carvings
Brilliant stuff. Even today, if you're in the field with a handful of marines and ask, does anyone have a bit of extra rope or cord, you can believe that 8 of 10 will immediately whip out the 200 yards of parachute cord they put in their pocket as soon as they heard they were going out. Regardless of environment. Rope is fastening, closing, holding, traps, confining, tying, knots, and a hundred other things. It's one of the easiest ways to harness a small team's strength for a common goal. (Usually dragging like in the video. :)) I love this theory.
Exactly, as a countrywoman I always have baler twine and a sharp penknife with me, even I am going out to a cocktail party.
Not just rope makers, but tools for utilising rope effectively. For securing rope, for holding it in place, for wrapping it around, for tightening it, etc. and they would be so familiar with bone and thus it would be an available workable material. Putting holes in it an extension of fire making skills perhaps. These were resourceful beings who were good at surviving because they had ingenuity.
This was absolutely fascinating! Thank you!
I love the final quote: the easiest way to be wrong about our ancestors is to underestimate them.
I also thought that these batonns needed to be carried around themselves: whole=around the waist on a rope or cross body. Their shape must have made them ideal to use to scrap away ice and snow for lichen.
Of course they had ropes: the net with shells on the skeleton's head is a finer version of ropes.
Yes. They had to have something to scrape the snow, ice, and lichens off their cars in the winter. No? They didn't have cars? Oh.
Seriously, I imagine they were as intelligent as we are! I believe they would adapt and survive if they were dropped into our world, I'm not sure if the opposite would be true...
@@wretchedmessthe idiots were killed off by harsh winters every year and predators.
The skeleton at 11:56? Those are sea shells, not rope. But yes, rope was definitely in their inventory and necessary for survival in many situations.
Yes and their clothes were sewn together with smaller twine.
Wow, my mind is spinning. As an archaeologist and fiber worker I can see these used for many may things. Rope making for this one is screamingly obvious. El Principe's perforated "batons" have the same spiral marks so I doubt they are tent pegs as some people suggest. However, El Principe is a big oops since we know it should be relabeled La Principessa. The grave assembly with her body are probably weaving tools. I can see them driven into the ground to guide fiber in weaving, like using a backstrap type of loom, sort of like are presently seen is southeast Asian weaving. And don't get me started on how old weaving is because when I went to college the Americas were populated starting 10,000 years ago by people who came over Berringia and see where that theory is now.
My first though was weaving tools. I made a belt using cards, and these batons reminded me of it. Would love it if we were able to find some intact clothing/fabric. I think they would be beautiful.
I got thrown off by the idea that she was a he. The tool assemblage would of course be different. I can easily see these being used for weaving. Since they would not be working with looms, I can see them being used instead of the beater on a loom, as a way to pack the weft neatly in place, after they are threaded through the weft of a backstrap loom. This makes a lot more sense now! I think working with textiles has been around a lot longer than most people suspect. The thing is, men's tools are often made in part of stone, and therefore last a long time, but women's tools are usually made of less stern stuff, and don't stay around forever. Ours were the baskets, the wooden spoons, the digging sticks, the twine and the things which all rot away, so little remains to show what we were doing, even though the things which we were tasked with making were vital to the survival of our families. When you read accounts of primitive cultures, including the more recently contacted ones of the most remote parts of the Amazon Basin, or in the the last parts of Africa to be explored in the early part of the last century, you see that about the only thing that the men did was hunt, and make tools for hunting or trapping. Cooking food, keeping the fire, making cooking vessels, weaving hammocks, making sandals (or or other footwear and clothing further north), gathering food, making baskets, nets, and a host of other necessary items, was the work of women, and because these are things that don't preserve well across the millennia, we rarely see them in archaeological assemblages, and when we do see them, it is only a part of the complete item.
@@laurabrown7912 Yep! We don't actually know when plant fibres first began being woven, but it must have been very early. The earliest signs of fibre use are a needle found 60,000 years ago of Denisovan make, and *dyed* multicolour fibres found in Georgia from 36,000 years ago in Dzudzuana cave. And made of flax, no less, which requires a complex process to process the fibres for use. It is my thinking that if the fibres were already dyed, then likely the fibre manufacture was older, as dying fibres is a complex skill. And these tools fit the bill, being 35,000 to 12,000 years old. These sorts of artefacts being tension-providing weights for weaving, shuttles, or simply sources of torsion would all make sense, particularly if the spiral grooves were not intentionally added but were instead wear-marks.
@@therat1117 The Dzudzuana excavation report is fantastic. They actually found imprints of flat needle knitting on pottery.
Funny because I saw the video show up in my feed just after I finished attaching a few buttons, so the pointed object with holes in the thumbnail made me think about a needle. 😅 Obviously I didn’t think it is a needle but likely some tool having to do with thread.
Interesting how the male mind goes straight to something useful for hunting while the female mind goes to how it could be useful around the house, so to speak. 😅
I like your analysis, very very plausable and well constructed
Great video, as a designer I find a huge inspiration in these shapes and speculations you are exploring! Thanks a lot Stefan :)
"Why not both?", as a cute girl from a meme says. I think the argument for practical use is very strong but Paleolithic is a lot of time for people who used these batons to incorporate them in their culture. It's not such a stretch when we think about it. A pastoral stick became a symbol of Catholic bishops, and many gods from different pantheons are associated with certain tools to the point where these tools become symbols of the gods, used in ceremonies. Maybe people from Hohle Fels at some point used a perforated baton in certain religious ceremonies.
This was my thought. If rope was crucial to your survival there would be groups who spent lots of time together making it. The creation of it is the ritual and the use is the practical aspect...if the way YOU help your group survive is sitting with 3-5 people and making rope for hours each day I am sure it wasn't long until stories, song, and myth became part of that process or a group would mourn the loss of someone who had been making rope with/for them for decades
Egyptian pharaohs had a shepherds crook as regalia. I doubt many of them were shepherds. Practical objects often take on symbolic significance
Hey Steffi-boi and Viewers - not sure if you're aware of the videos of Sally Pointer here on YT, an experimental archaeologist specialising in prehistoric fibre and textile production methods. She has videos particularly focusing on the construction of cord and rope from plant materials, along with their known and hypothesized uses. It's incredibly interesting as these artifacts are so rarely given the profile they deserve within archaeology or for the interested public, although there are actually more preserved examples of these than people might assume - often due to immersion in bogs, etc. Always happy to steer a willing victim down another delightful archaeological rabbit hole...
She actually did a test of this very theory! th-cam.com/video/6wve3KMhxcw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=1uKwBio3n9dsvKsa Looks very plausible.
Sally Pointer knows her stuff! I learnt to make cordage from her videos, and you don’t need a fancy tool, but just your fingers. You can make thin cordage from, for eg., nettles, etc., and then twist the thin cordage with other thin cordage to make it thicker, and so on. Since then, I’ve made useful natural cordage of varying thicknesses and sometimes very long lengths, very quickly, with no tools at all. So I’m not sure that the holed bone/antler/ivory is necessarily a cord making tool, nice though it would be to have solved the mystery. The tool was clearly important to the owners, as otherwise some of them wouldn’t be decorated.
I have quite a bit of free time on my hands lately and all i have been binge watching your wonderful videos non stop. This one was my favourite and it was so satisfying to watch him make that rope from the baton replica. Whether the hypothesis is correct or not, we really do underestimate what humans were capable of doing just 10-20k years ago when we are practically the same genetically.
Great video Stefan, it creates all sorts of possible scenarios.
The dichotomy of man:
Sometimes, we make a cheese sandwich. Sometimes, we build the Taj mahal.
You should think about putting that on a shirt. I think it's a great & funny quote. It definitely made me laugh.
I'd buy one in a hot second.
When I saw the multi-hole baton , I was reminded of leather rope making. After noting the striations around the hole ,I agree it is more likely for rope making. But I can also see using a one , two or three hole baton as a way to secure a rope on a back pack or travois. Inserting a rope into a hole ,wrapping it around the end and inserting the loose end into the remaining hole. Pull it tight, and your supplies are ready for travel.
Very well made and interesting video, subbed!
I think these were mace handles used for hunting chickens. Straps of leather were bound into the holes. On the heavy end a rock woven into a basket of leather was flailed at the chicken from an over the shoulder then above the head aspect assuring the chicken did not escape the swing by taking flight.
Since these are 40k-15k years old and chickens only came about 10k-4k years ago in SE Asia, it would probably be some other prehistoric galliform. I think during this time period, hunting small game was less common due to the small return on investment of effort vs the megafauna that were still around. There is a change in hunting weapons over time as megafauna became less common, hunting weapons for small game become more common.
I can see that some of the tools have a pointed end, which reminded me of the very similar rope splicing tools (fids) of modern times.
Yeah, as much as I'm usually happily ensconced on "Team Ritual," I have to say that in this case I really think the most likely purpose for these is for use in rope-making (or rope-related activities). I mean, the multi-holed one looks remarkably like something I saw still being used to make rope on a replica 17th or 18th century ship.
She was buried with them, so bet she was the best of her village at making/splicing rope and she was respected for that. As soon as you mentioned the pointed end, I remembered seeing something similar when looking up instructions for splicing floating rope for a boat, if it ain't broke don't re-design it!
Arrow straightener and small game spear straightener. Also a rope braider, a timepiece, trail marker, climbing pinon, range finder, isolation monocular, and more.
This was a Swiss Army knife, no wonder they were popular back when being a survivalist meant everyone.
Ask an older Indian tribal member here in the states about them.
I guess variations of this tool made it into the 20th Century.
This is where my head was at the whole video. A tool this prolific surely had more than one common use.
Twist carvings for rope
Wow! I agree, these are absolutely fascinating 🙌 thanks for a great video!
One of your best videos so far. Really enjoyed it. Each time one of your videos gets closer to the end, it makes me sad because I enjoy them so much. Please don't stop making videos! Thanks!
The single-holed ones seem like they’re perfect for use as stakes suck in the ground for tents. Maybe a dual purpose, making the rope for the tent then as a stake to drive in the ground holding the rope that potentially supports a tent or some kind of housing?
I thought so too. Maybe also used as pitons for climbing hills/mountains.
Seems unlikely. Tent stakes usually aren't that hard to make from what you find nearby. If you were going to bring some with you, they might still be wood, since shoving them in and out of the ground repeatedly will wear them out and you might not want to waste bone or ivory on something that will get rapidly destroyed.
Perhaps most importantly, a notch rather than a loop is actually the most convenient shape for a tent stage. Modern tent stakes, with near complete freedom in shape and material, always have something more like a notch, and honestly from my personal experience having to tie a string through the stake every time rather than just put a loop over the top sounds like a massive pain.
The went to the trouble to engrave rifled grooves into the holes also on the single-holed batons. This suggests a unity of intention with the multi-holed batons. Doesn't seem worth doing for mere tent pegs
@@digitalbrentable maybe when a tent is your home the pegs seem a bit more than just “mere”. I think that’s how we think of them for sure.
They don't need to have just one function. Particularly if you're living a mobile existence, versatile tools that had more than one use would be an advantage. Potentially they could be for making rope AND be pegs AND be digging tools AND have a ritual significance. Modern societies have ceremonial tools and weapons, e.g. military dress swords and those outsize scissors they used to use to cut ribbons at the ceremonial opening of public buildings (whatever happened to those? I don't think I've actually seen them in an age). Binding rope together could have obvious symbolic significance. A good leader (or even just a productive member of society) metaphorically fulfils that role by joining those around them together into something stronger than they were apart. Burying someone with rope-making tools could be a way of honouring the ties they created in life.
100% pure conjecture, obviously.
@@HedonisticPuritan-mp6xv if you can get good mushrooms, you don't need to look through a hole in an antler. You're probably better off leaving the cave, listening to the birds sing and watching the sun rise...
I could see the single holed batons being hammered into the ground in a row (or some means to secure them in place) to make larger, stronger ropes. Then you can apply more force and everyones hands are free to work. Might also explain why so many are broken at the holes. When I saw a horse carved on one of the batons, the rope maker hypothesis seemed extremely plausible.
I highly doubt it’s anything close, but when I saw the ones with 4 holes on the title photo, I immediately thought of these things we’d make as little girls to hold various threads, ribbons, twine, whatever so we could braid intricate friendship bracelets by ourselves with no one having to hold them in place and you didn’t have to worry about a clip. How many holes you made in a line determined how many various colors or types of whatever cordage could go into the braid and how intricate the braiding would be, even up to 6, 7, and on. The most I did was 10.
A lot of times, when you’re making bracelets for friends, you might have no one to hold it in place and honestly with clips sometimes the material would pull loose when you’re braiding and tightening. Tieing off the ends to the hole was the best method to hold it tight during braiding. And then you have enough at the ends to tie everything together when done.
Excited to see the theories come out.
Hi, I'm an industrial designer, from an ergonomics point of view, in my opinion they are probably "handles". Your idea of people grabbing an animal with rope made me think about knotting the rope to the bone passing through the hole and using the cylindrical part as a handle to pull with more force without damaging your hands. This made me think that in general it must have been very common to drag big weights from one side to the other even for long distances and that for this reason a comfortable tool was essential. Also I looked at other images of perforated batons online and seems pretty common a section of the cylindrical surface is often marked or ribbed as for help with grip, some times even the end side of the cylinder opposite to the hole has a shape that gets larger or curved, again i think to help holding the handle with one hand. Who knows how many other uses it had, almost certainly a sort of weapon or simply to kill small captured animals before eating them, a blow on the head and off you go:) what do you think? (P.S.: love your videos)
Why have a hole when a knot will do? I think they have holes in order to let rope pass through. Maybe they are long and sharp on one end to be used as stakes in the ground or in wood. Maybe they are tools for rope making itself. Maybe the fibers are twisted and repeatedly drawn through the hole by hand to smooth or wax the rope.
Edit: might be easy assumption because I wrote this before they talked about it
Hah this is EXACTLY what first came to mind for me also! Came here looking for similar comments and came across yours first 🙂
Makes perfect sense for them to be handles (as well as rope making tools and many other uses)
Can easily imagine them being useful for leveraging rope to lift heavier weights than hands alone could do. Definitely useful for dragging that food back home.
Another image that came to mine was a handle for a swinging rope weapon of some sort, possibly with a blunt or sharp object at the other end.
@@johns1625A knot can slip along the baton length. A hole keeps it in one place. Also, much harder to lose with a hole.
Somebody pin this post.
Have you seen the examples of these bearing square holes instead of round?
Scientifically, those are actually whatchamacallits. They are closely related to thingamajigs and within the same clade as whoozits and whatsits.
someday we'll find it, the thingmabob connection
you missed out the doofree doo and the doofer ;
Also handy for adjusting the Foofoo Valve.
A wigwam for a goose's bridle?
@@carolinereynolds2032
blowing bubbles for the kids using soap wort ?
Rope making was the very first thing I thought of even before watching this video. Sometimes experts can get too close to their subject, and it takes someone from outside to see the obvious. Science is often like that.
I’m gonna make one of those and try it out-thanks for your research!
"The 'rope,' along with the 'stick,' are two of mankind's oldest tools. The stick to keep the bad away, the rope used to bring the good toward us. They were our first friends, of our own invention. Wherever there were people, there were the rope and the stick." --- From Kobe Abe's "Nawa" (quoted at the start of the video game, Death Stranding).
Do you know a humorous book called “Motel”? It was published by Dover Books and I don’t remember the author. The book tells the story of archaeologists in a distant future who unearth the ruins of a present day motel, which they don’t understand. Everything is for ritualistic use and a bathroom stool is “used to communicate with the gods”. We should use Okham’s razor and think simple uses are usually the best answer.
it's a fun book, but it's brought up literally constantly in these circles. It's not an actual commentary on archaeology though.
Originally the batons were hypothesized to be ritual in nature. But over the decades, their extremely common appearance over huge amounts of time and geography pretty much killed that idea. Anything purely ritual doesn't last that long, especially pre-written language.
These fictional archeologists would be pretty dumb if after finding step stools all over the place, in diverse environments, still thought they were ritualistic. Funny idea but not very realistic as far as basic logic that anyone should have.
Motel of the Mysteries
@@CorwinFound The ritualistic automobile.
@@CorwinFoundI think people are a bit too dismissive of ritual as an explanation for things. Lots of commonplace, mundane, and practical things have a ritual element to them.
A typical toilet absolutely has a ritualistic element to it: a strange cabinet in almost every house that locks from the inside with no other exits. A second separate basin from the main basin in the kitchen, usually with a mirror. Scented perfumes and soaps. A future archaeologists would be correct to deduce a sort of defecation ritual requiring total privacy and subsequent ablution. Contrast with open air and u-shaped communal toilets in ancient Rome.
Looks like an arrow straightener. Warm a stick up over a fire, then use something with a hole in it to apply leverage to the stick at any point where there is a bend. The groves might be for adding grip for more precise application of force, or to aid in removing bark from shafts and/or smoothing them. The different holes might be for different diameter shafts. Throwing arrows or atlatl darts are known to have been in use in France 21,000 years ago and basic throwing spears much longer than that.
Thanks for this. So fun to think about.
Those tangential markings around the holes tell the user which way to twist the strands in order to make the rope correctly. When the strands are twisted that way, they naturally stay wrapped to each other. I have made rope; that's how I know. Ideally, you would have 4 people involved in making a common 3-strand rope: Three, each holding a tool in their left hand, and adding fibers and twisting them with their right hand, while they feed their strand through the hole in their tool. The fourth person is holding the other rope, or rather the three strands and maintains tension in the rope between himself and the other three. Ideally, each of the three would have their own one-hole tool. The tools that have multiple holes would be for someone who is doing it himself, and that would be much more difficult and take much longer, as he would be doing the work of many, one hole at a time.
That rope-making is amazing! I think they may have figured out the braid by learning to braid their hair in earlier times.
Lady’s hairstylists were called Spinners in ancient days.
You really think we figured out how to look fancy first and then made survival easier and thus more likely afterwards? That feels like saying pottery was invented after people figured out how to make necklaces and hair beads from fired clay first..
@@Bassalicious You jest, but both of those sound like great theories to me.
@Bassalicious where did I say anyone was trying to "look fancy"? Braids are a practical way to keep hair out of one's way while doing other things, and braids keep hair from tangling into knots. Try to keep up.
@@cosmoplakat9549 I'm just saying it feels odd to me. I have long hair but if I didn't have anything I'd prefer a rope over braided hair to survive is what I'm saying.
The technology is the same pretty much. My feeling is both came along more or less simultaneously. I'd think hair was cut or bound by other means previously. Also hair doesn't really knot that easily when you don't wash the talcum off every so often. I think modern hygiene is skewing our picture there.
Bearing blocks for a bow drill set. A fire making tool that uses friction and wood to generate heat and smoldering ash that can be fanned into an open flame and then into a large fire for heat or to cook over or just both.
Bone is good as a bearing block because it will not ignite or decay under hard use like wood will.
My first thought, when I saw it, was a hearth. To guide the spinning shaft. But I saw no evidence of any heat scaring. Guess I will watch, now.
The single hole are for a single person to use. These are most definitely used for making twine or rope. Two strands are used in the single hole batons. One twisted strand is wrapped around a single bigger strand by feeding the big strand through the hole and the other is wrapped around by keeping tension with one hand while rotating the baton all the way around for the length of the bigger.
It’s a mystery to us, but probably one day we’ll find a cave painting with someone using one and it’ll be something like a blunt holder for smoking joints or something.
Big ass reefers!😂😂😂
I swear Stefan please keep making videos! Every single video of yours has some moment in it that just fascinates me and absolutely blows my mind. These are obviously heavily researched in advance, especially with the interviews, and this is obviously a passion of yours. Which has made archeology and ancient civilizations a huge passion of mine too. I can not thank you enough. ❤ My favorite channel by far!
Also!! One video idea I’d be curious to see discussed, especially since I personally don’t know too much about it and how factual it is, is the archeological site in Zambia that has petrified logs with cut marks that were notched together at close to a right angle with a suggested date of 476,000 years old, bringing up the question of if it was made by our ancient relatives, a different species, or our relatives but earlier than we thought. I couldn’t think of a better person to ask
Just came across your channel today. Love your passion !
"I can't help it" is already iconic. Thank you always for your amazing work ❤️
My brother & I make our own arrows for archery & hunting, we use a tool like this to straighten out the wooden arrow shafts over a fire.
Why do you have twist carvings in your arrow straightener?
it seems to me that every time I see fishermen weaving their net or repairing a hole in the net they had a device that looked something like this. There could be stronger nets made to capture animals on the land? Hunger will always urge you to invent something to improve what ever you are doing. Nets are very useful from fishing, trapping animals, making hammocks to sleep in, etc.
Sam
Yes, a “fid” or “fib”. Sold them in a hardware store where I worked, but I never could figure them out.
I think it is a multi use tool. Basically a hard point for tie offs that you can drive into wood, ground, or animal bodies to tie a rope off. A single holed one can be used for hanging something from a tree limb with a convenient hard point. Later it can be driven to the ground to be a tie off for making a very long rope using a 3 holed one as well to make the rope. Use it as a stake for a kind of tent. It doubles as a flint napper. Use it as a way to redirect force on a rope. Use it as a lever. Different shapes for different tasks too. Maybe some where for helping basket weaving. We may even say, what was it not used for, its so versatile.
Great video as usual. My thought is these had multiple purposes, perhaps making rope, perhaps used to make Atlatl or arrow shafts more informed, and/or as a shaft straightener.
Keep up the great work… I do miss the spoon 😂
It always bears repeating, our ancestors were as smart as us.
Bears?🐻
I suspect smarter, as they only had natural materials, and live and dangerous food to work with.
@@telebubba5527 Autocabbage!
It's a button. Run a cord through the holes and use the stick to hold the flap of something closed.
Something like cloaks for the small ones, packs for the middle ones, and the door flap on a round-house for the big ones.
A tool used to manufacture rope would not have decorations on it. This is front-door bling.
I love the idea! Sounds plausible.
My first impression upon seeing the batons with the single hole, is that it looked like a tool to attach a rope and then throw. Then maybe it gets entangled in something, and now it's an anchor point for the rope. Or even a weight to throw a rope over a tree branch that you can't reach. The antlers won't damage the rope, so it's more useful over time than a rock would be.
Interesting idea. I feel that antler or bone would be too light to work for that, plus one might just tie one end around a stone for a similar result.
Stephan, you presenting the Scentbird ad was the only ad Ive ever watched with humour and interest!!
Excellent, charming, fun, informative tone to the entire video. First time viewer. 🔥
Thank you for putting the antlers on, made my day
Fastening them with a nice bow under his chin was the cherry on top. :D
"When I've got these antlers on I am dictating, and when I take them off I'm not dictating."
My main, uneducated, opinion on this is that this tool could be used for a lot of things, i.e rope making and staff straightening - But I also think there is another thing overlooked here.
They could be used as an anchorpoint to tie things to, think the stick to a knapsack, so that you can carry around pouches etc. with the same stick but replace the rope - And use that same tool to make new rope on the way once your one gets worn. An ancient "Handbag Handle" for a time before good pockets or sturdy backpacks that you can then walk with in your hand.
The burial in Italy makes me think that perhaps it had to do with his profession or his role in his society - Perhaps a good craftsman for making them, who would trade them with others; I know if my friend died, and he made sticks for us all the time while I lived in a society who believed you'd bring items buried with you into the afterlife, I would make sure he took a few with him.
What I'm learning from this comment section is that the uses for a "lightweight thingy with a whole drilled in it" are limited only by one's imagination.
I always enjoy your videos. Thank you
It’s a handle to install on a rope, making it easier to pull harder on the rope. Use 2-3 holes for friction to keep the handle stationary on the main rope. Use 4th hole to attach additional ropes. Now it’s easier to pull very heavy things, like mammoth legs.
Rope making, awesome stuff :) I had always assumed the perforated batons were used to straighten wooden hunting shafts. What a great video!
Some probably were. Stone "arrow straighteners" might have been early weaving weights. Microscopic wear patterns inside the holes of these "batons" might be useful in telling whether they were used with wood, hide or plant fibers.
The pointy one in the burial looks like a fid.
Is that like a Marlin spike? Used for loosening knots.
Seems like "fid" is on the edge of my brain
you aren't the only one to say this
Thanks! Great reporting on yet another enigma that has new light shed on it. It continues to amaze me how as we go further in time our view of the past becomes sharper with collective scientific minds examining these artifacts.
Always love your videos!
I grew up hunting for food. The single hole batons look like snare triggers. You need something smooth to hold the snare in tension that will slip easily when pulled.
The shape would certainly lend itself to this task, but the use of the difficult to work ivory, would seem to me to be overkill, when an easier to work piece of wood is far quicker to make
@@bigoldgrizzly for a rabbit snare level of tension wood is fine, for a bear or elk snare the amount of tension needed will pinch wood and foul the trigger. For large traps you need bone or antler.
@@boden8138
I bow to your experience Sir !
The only snaring [snickling] I have done is for rabbit and fox. Distinct shortage of Bear and elk in Yorkshire :
Oh heck yes! Really curious to hear current thoughts on these
Ceremonial batons
Fascinating stuff! Thanks 👍
2:29 "Mysterious oblong artifacts who's use escapes us!" 😂
Digging up that picture of the Inuit family was a fine bit of archaeology.
Stefan!!!!!! Yeah good to see ya
I've never heard of the "perforated baton problem". When i saw the images my mind directly jumped to "rope guide", because winding up rope is easy but twirling it together evenly is hard and will hurt your fingers on the long term. A piece of wood with two or more evenly spaced deep slots or holes are a really great help.
The four batons with one hole might make good tent stakes... and you would need several. Just a thought. If you hammer them, they might break, so having a wide shape or a "handle" would allow you to twist them into the ground.
Flint knapper here. We have these things in my country too (Denmark) and I have been trying to understand for a while now. In Denmark they are found from the mesolithic through the neolithic and into the bronze age. When I see these specific pieces of antler in these specific time periods the obvious function coming to my mind is as soft hammers for flint knapping. Concerning the holes my best guess it that they are for drying the striking surface of the hammers. It is a well known problem that antler hammers become damp in wet weather and turn to mush. I haven't been able to test it myself but I know of an american flint knapper who works with bone hammers and he drills out the marrow to avoid this problem. The holes in the antler, almost always near the striking surface, could serve a similar function.
Kul att se lite nordisk representation!
I just made a comment that old Swedish rope making techniques used tools like this. Check that one!
Another video about arrow straighteners??? Ask any wilderness survivalist what these are, we all know! Love your channel!
Ahhhh! Interesting. How does it work?
Exactly what I thought when I saw them. Similar principle as dowel makers used by carpenters.
I know nothing about it but I've seen Ray Mears making arrows and he just used a fire and his hands ?
I have no doubt that some of these objects were used to straighten arrows, and that may even have been their intended purpose, but I don't believe that's the case for them all. For the object featured in this video: if it were an arrow straightener, why would it have three identically sized holes? (And one smaller(?) one.) It wouldn't work to straighten three arrows at once, in any case.
I wouldn't be surprised if we weren't looking at a family of tools with different primary functions, similar to the many types of knife, cloth or earthenware (for example) that we make and use.
These are clearly evidence of a lost, advanced, pre-iceage, globe spanning civilization
I can imagine that similar tools could be used for quite varied tasks. Multiple holes could be for making rope as shown here but anyone making and working with rope is probably going to also be working with knots, guides, buckles, maybe basic pulleys and levers. These would all apply high stress and lead to these kind of breaks in the end while the combination of being both incredibly useful and quite mysterious (mechanical advantage is a weird thing) could easily lead to an object that was both practical and symbolic/ritual.
PS - Great tash
What a great show thank you guys
Stefan debating what people use rope for 😂. You work outside, you use rope for a million things dude😂
Wild to think that Native Americans were still in the stone age less than 500 years ago.
The second stone age apears to be on the horizon
Bone seems like optimal material for fiber work vs the other options that would have been available- woods would catch on the fibers and pull them apart. Stone too abrasive and damage fiber integrity. Without proper machining metal would probably just cut fibers. Bone has the silica smoothness that allow fibers to slide.
SOME of these perforated tools look like they would be useful strightening archery projectiles, darts, javelins, and maybe even spears. Heat the shaft, hold it how you want it while it cools. It stays that way. Just a thought.
Whenever an Anthropologist doesn't know what the heck something is used for, they call it a "ritual object".
Because humans love rituals and make tons and tons and tons of ritual objects.
@@eve3614 indeed, and also when people think of "rituals" they usually think about killing a goat and drink their blood lol. Rituals can be simple things and non-religious ones. Something as mundane as a birthday party is not religious but it is a ritual :) Milo explained it in the previous video.
Did you watch the video?
I mean yeah, most objects are used in rituals. cups, toothbrushes, combs, pots, knives, clothes, paper, wheels, toys, pointed sticks. its harder to think of things we don't use in a ritual. we even use geographic features for it.
i think its just hard for people to separate the idea of ritual meaning "something specific you do a lot" from ceremony or rites which are more symbolic or religious
You're so right! I often wonder how many items were just toys for kids to play with and since they don't know, it MUST be a ritual item or a depiction of one of their gods. Lol!