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Of course. And bone and antler, too. One of the primary techniques for manufacturing stone tools - shared by Neanderthals and probably other pre-human hominids
by retrac 2y ago
Of course. And bone and antler, too. One of the primary techniques for manufacturing stone tools - shared by Neanderthals and probably other pre-human hominids - was (is?) using a piece of wood or bone, as the hammer. The wood is softer, but it's elastic, and it deforms when it impacts, and transfers the energy in a different way. The resulting tools are distinct, and the development of the soft hammer techniques might have been one of the first advances, beyond trying to make a rock with a sharp edge at all.
Very exciting to find actual evidence though. Organic implements almost never ever survive.
- bee_rider 2y agoThat’s interesting. Nowadays I think (although I’m certainly not very handy) soft faced hammers are mostly used to protect what you are hammering, right? So it is mostly an aesthetic thing. Of course ancient humans also had a sense of beauty, but I guess I tend to assume they were much rougher with their construction. I wonder what they were trying not to scuff.
- kadoban 2y agoFor stone age tools it would have been less for the aesthetics and more for: what else are you going to use? You can use stone to hit stone, but depending on the stones and the intent (and the technique), achieving the right results might be difficult or impossible. Other options: you don't have metal really. You could grind stuff, maybe, but that's a _lot_ of effort. So soft faced hammers should have had a place just by virtue of lack of other good options. My understanding is that for several things it'd be a lot of effort but relatively low technique required and relatively low risk of just cracking/smashing whatever you're trying to work on into uselessness.
- ReleaseCandidat 2y ago> what else are you going to use? Even today there aren't many uses for metal (excluding brass) hammers apart from driving nails, stone (carving) chisels and everything involving deforming metal. For everything else you can use a "soft" hammer or mallet.
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- agumonkey 2y agoMakes me wonder if some cultures didn't use falls to carve/drill stones with water
- ReleaseCandidat 2y ago> mostly used to protect what you are hammering Yes, but that still includes tools like woodworking and wood carving chisels, froes, axes, metal splitting wedges (to protect against metal splinters flying around),...
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