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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ashtagon" data-source="post: 5989102" data-attributes="member: 72335">Oh dear... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" />Define "early on". We have reliable evidence of bows existing from  64,000 years ago. That's certainly before my time, and fits the British  legal definition of "since time immemorial".Certainly, large herd animals can be hunted with spears. But they can  also be hunted with bows, and I suspect they can be hunted with bows at  less personal risk to individual hunters than if the hunters were using  spears. Early Man was not stupid; if they had the technology for bows,  they would have used them. Therefore, we can suppose the reason bows  were not used earlier than they were was not out of some perceived lack  of need (even one lost warrior was one too many), but a lack of  technology. Early man didn't "need" bows in the same way that modern man  doesn't need mobile phones; in both cases, they could get along just  fine, but they make the task at hand so much easier.Cul-de-sacs are more of a modern invention due to urban architecture. Stone Age hunting techniques tended to take advantage of humanity's greater endurance rather than forcing animals off cliffs or ravines (seriously, you force the elephant off the cliff, then who climbs down to get it? Cliffs aren't that common in areas that have big game anyway.) Humans have an amazing ability to carry on travelling non-stop for hours at a stretch compared to most wild animals.Incidentally, giant sloths existed only in South America, dying out by about 10,500 years ago (humans arrived there somewhen between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago). Humanity's hunting habits against giant sloths can't really be taken as typical.Stone age man disagrees with you; bows are rather good for animal hunting. These images date from 6000 years ago.<a href="http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/5235/spanish-cave-paintings-pics-from-la-valltorta-ravine#.UCeP86Os-lw" target="_blank">spanish cave paintings (pics) from la valltorta ravine in Historic & Prehistoric Bow Reference Forum</a><a href="http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t202/dantolin/IMG_0642c.jpg" target="_blank">http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t202/dantolin/IMG_0642c.jpg</a>The reason they weren't used earlier was because they hadn't been invented yet, not because they weren't suitable for hunting animals, or because spears were good enough for the job.Agriculture is strictly an invention of H. sapiens. Neanderthal man never did this. The best summary of this sequence of events is in the opening part of Guns, Germs, and Steel.Also, Neanderthals could probably have made good use of writing, had they acquired the necessary skills.And "empathic to the point of being psychic". Really? It's a popular trope, but to coin a phrase, [citation needed] <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/ponder.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":hmm:" title="Hmmm    :hmm:" data-shortname=":hmm:" />I'm also somewhat surprised about Neanderthal Man speaking "in the original common tongue as described accurately in the bible". My copy of the Bible doesn't mention Neanderthal Man. Or evolution, for that matter. (And let's NOT delve any further into Bible studies please.)</blockquote>

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