Before picks and other instruments came the humble digging stick

in #archaeology7 years ago (edited)

Much of Southern Africa has deep soils and as a hunter gatherer you need something to dig with, to get to all those tasty tubers, roots and animals hiding in burrows.

Sticks by themselves worked for a while, but then someone figured out that a weighted stick would work better.

That idea evolved into a large rounded stone with a hole bored into it.

Below is such a stone with a broomstick inserted through it for scale.

The above stone is actually for a stick larger in diameter than a broom stick but they are found in all shapes and sizes.

The hole is bored by using hard grit or sand and a stick as shown in the video below.

The inside of this one has been worn perfectly smooth from many years of much use.

The larger one is made of a fine grey green siltstone and the smaller one from a grittier yellow sandstone.

Both of these stones can easily be identified as having come from certain distinctive Karroo rocks that are found in the foothills of the Drakenberg Mountains.

There stones can be found hundreds of kilometers from their original point of manufacture and may be passed down from generation to generation or exchanged as highly prized gifts.

The below video shows how digging for tubers was an important part of surviving in the drier parts of the country.

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I'll have to retain this in my brains memory banks, and when the massive solar flare wipes out the internet and our digital civilization, i can still get me some tubers.

Interesting Gavvet, all info about stone-use helps give more insides, i found more worked stones these last weeks and some interesting bones,
IMG 0199
stones with holes are usually done of as fishing net balances here, but getting new ideas.
Example found on the riverbed.

a very interesting way of digging - putting a stone weight higher up the handle rather than using a sharpened stone to pierce the ground. Did they use both methods?

The resilience of humans, knowing the earth untouched by the sun might be damp or contain buried tubers.

The use of sand as grit has long been used by ancient peoples and may have been used in Egypt with copper saws to make longitudinal cuts. Amazing how abrasive sand can be even when ground with a stick handle

sharpened stones are brittle and break

I live a very primitive off-grid lifestyle by American standards, no electricity, phone or plumbing. I try to not use any fuel powers implements when possible. I feel more confident and secure knowing that I can use hand tools to get results. Reading about and watching these videos has been very inspiring. I would have never thought to hollow out a rock in that fashion. Fantastic ingenuity! Of course upvoted and resteemed

Am always learning something new on steemit everyday. All these wonderful information will certainly increase my general knowledge about instruments that came from the humble digging stick.

Such information helps us to appreciate what we enjoy today.

That is quite a bit of work to make that hole in the rock by hand, but it actually went faster than I thought it would. Interesting to imagine a rock storing value, brings a new meaning to Block Chain.

that's for sure

I always wondered when it came to tools and hand axes and the like how they managed to work with stone and create holes in it. That is pretty dashed effective.

It makes me wonder...

  • Did the people who came up with a simple but time intensive method ever invent a way to make the hand-drilling easier?
  • Did they expressly experiment with different types of rocks?
  • Were different-sized stones used for digging up different kinds of plants?

Yes, yes and yes.

I might have to learn this before my wife kicks me out to scavenge lol

They really take their time when making these old tools. The weighted stick is pretty interesting. Thanks for sharing @gavvet

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