Experimental archaeology again!
Mark and I try to drill through a stone using the conjectured method that archaeologists suggest that stone age Man used to make stone axe heads. Will we make it though before running out of time? Make your guess at the half-way mark.
Drilling through a stone with stone-age technology (YouTube)
Comments (7)
Enjoyed this one quite a bit.
You quoted a common error in statistics by saying no one lived past thirty. That is a common misconception by misapplied statistics. The average age is computed by compiling the age of death for all known examples. What has been recently realized is that while child mortality might be extremely high, those who survive to adulthood can live to decently old ages, it's just that the median average has been reduced by the sheer numbers of dead progeny, which gives a false image about life expectancy being "short and brutish," versus being "long and British." Yes, I went there and yes, pun was intended. If you are feeling PUNished by my juvenile sense of humor, or heaven forfend, wounded even, feel free to take some PUNicillin along with the gauze and tape to staunch the bleeding. We wouldn't want any permanent damage.
Happy New Year. Yes, I was aware of the misleading nature of the term 'life expectancy'. There have been places and times when the age at which one was least likely to die was that of the 'life expectancy'. It was a joke.
Anyway, Lloyd, wishing you and yours a safe and happy holiday season. Slainté (Irish for "to your health!")
Thanks!
The bow drill works because it was first used to make fire. I would imagine (yes, imho, no scientific evidence for this idea) that rather than cutting both ends of the straight bone, to help get the hole started, using a bit of wet sand, one could grip the bone joint and rotate the bone back and forth until an indentation was achieved, then switched to the bone drill once the hole had been started. Fascinating video and thank you and your friend for your hard work to entertain us for a half an hour. All the best.
Love seeing this. I find it odd that there are ancient technology experiment YouTube channels that have very unclear goals, nice to see a clearer experiment with a conjectural setup.