Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Learned something new .... or old?
Looking at KSHS again. Strange archeological item caught my attention. Half-disk made of stone. Looked like a cooking tool, maybe a corn-grinder.
The description, copied and pasted:
This boatstone was recovered from a multicomponent site, 14CF416, in Coffey County and donated to the Kansas Historical Society in 2015. The camp site was occupied periodically from the Archaic Period to the Late Ceramic Period. This boatstone would have dated to the earlier time period. Boatstones are thought by archeologists to have been used as atlatal weights. The boatstone would have been tied to the atlatal utilizing the central medial groove along the keel. It would have aided the atlatal in throwing the spear or dart further and faster. The boatstone has decoartive radiating lines on each of its sides.First thought: What's an atlatl? Looked it up, turns out to be an elegant and efficient way of propelling an arrow, with less 'overhead' than a bow. More like a mini-catapult than a bow. Needless to say, there are people who specialize in making and using atlatls. Okay. I have no interest in weaponry. I've never seen the word or the device before. The KSHS text consistently spells it atlatal every time. I saw it and looked it up as atlatl, which turns out to be correct. One of those Aztec spellings like Popocatepetl. How did I know? The atlatl specialist store has this quote on its webpage: "Thanks to our Stone Age Ancestors, all of us have an Atlatl in our past." And in our genes?
Labels: Asked and unanswered, Grand Blueprint
¶ 3:03 PM
