Tag: Archaeology
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While the Hong Kong Style Withers…
Someone on the Stunt People Discord recently posted this: I noted that I think it’s easier to import the Japanese style of movement (“Japanese Punch”) into American action cinema than it is to import “Hong Kong Punch.” It all has to do with the historical development of warfare and theater, side by side. Japan perfected…
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Is a Knife a Weapon? Or a Sacrificial Implement?
Of the 332 bronze artifacts with working edges excavated from Yin hsü, 317 are weapons and only fifteen are classifiable as tools; the latter were all wood-working not farming implements. On the other hand, huge quantities of slate knives were unearthed, and these – the so-called Hsiao-t’un stone knives – were reasonably regarded as harvesting…
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Cut Stones as Ancient Medium of Exchange
I’ve written previously about how ancient handaxes might have originally been modified stones for the purpose of exchange, not for utility. If reciprocal, object-based aggression (ROBA) is the base system of human combat, then every stone is a potential weapon, every person a potential combatant, and the entire world a potential graveyard. The original act…
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The First Word Might Have Required Object-based Intimidation
What exactly caused the bridge between object-usage and combat which gave rise to ROBA in humans, which (per my hypothesis) produced human, recursive language? Apes have the capacity to “reach” for combat using objects. As seen in the 1980s macaque studies, apes’ axions extend outward when given a tool, and then the axions retreat once…