Just wondering - why it has to be either or (sacred or secular) . . . Why not infuse "magic" into every day objects, to make them more effective? Consider some people have objects christened, such as boats (well, at one time anyway). You can have your home blessed by a cleric, but it's still serves a largely practical purpose in your life.

God bless, has anyone asked the Inuit or Khoisan or San or other groups what they would use them for…….or if they recognize them……god bless

@@gaslitworldf.melissab2897 Their world was different from ours in that 'religion' was not separated from real life. It was all intertwined and they never thought of it being 'religious'. In fact, our concept of 'religion' is only some 5000 years old. You only have to take a look at tribal communities, like Papuans or Amazone and maybe even Africa to get some understanding of how it works.

Do they have Stegosaurus smell? Otherwise dilophosaurus will do.

Great video Stefan In the culture of the Basque people there is a rital baton called a 'Makila'.

I loved learning since young age and I will never understand people that want to keep working tedious jobs forever because they're afraid they'll be bored in retirement. How can anyone be bored when there's such a vast amount of knowledge and languages to learn?!

A dispassionate teacher can suck the life out of any topic.

Ah, but now you get to choose when to learn and what to learn.

You just grew an internet addiction.

@@omarsabih I like listening to this stuff when I'm at the gym. It's better than gaming all day I suppose

Certainly true if they’d been discovered in Italy!

I'm Italian, I can indeed confirm 😂

Beat me to it.

No, no I saw the vintage BBC documentary on the spaghetti growers of Italy and the terrible spaghetti blight they suffered years ago. You don’t need to measure it, it grows to a certain length naturally.

When did Italians steal noodles from China and call it spaghetti and linguine? Marco Polo?

I was confused by the specific justification for needing rope, like just for hauling food? It's a much more fundamental tool than that, for things as simple as fixing two objects together, tying off a rolled up skin or bundle etc. It's still an essential tool imo

The second I saw the one with four holes, I thought of "card weaving" which is 100% worth looking into if you have never heard of it. By using different colors in the holes of the cards, and numbers of them, woven fabric can be made with really intricate patterns. Mostly used for making things like belts and trims by the Vikings if I'm remembering it correctly, or May be the Celts. I don't really recall.

I was thinking the ones with one hole might be for straightening shafts for arrows or small spears, but I don't know how well they would be suited to that task. Rope or other cord making makes sense for the ones with multiple holes, but I love the idea of them being used for weaving like card weaving. Maybe they were used for both? Nothing says a tool can only ever be used one way, like how I have used screwdrivers for several things that had nothing to do with screws. 🤔

Does she use diz knots when she is stripping? I'm sorry.

My thought it was to make rope.

Fascinating topic! I also immediately thought of tools for spinning and plying fiber. The ones in the Prince’s burial, with a single hole in a wide paddle-like circle, and the shaft tapering to a point at the other end, made me think of drop-spindles. Some of the narrow ones could be used as shuttles for making nets. Or they could be used like a turnbuckle, to tighten a cord that has stretched. You could use it as a handle for pulling a rope or cord, or maybe in building wattle-and-daub houses or fences. I hope these researchers can find out more about these things! I’m curious - were they able to identify the type of plant fibers in the holes? I’m thinking of nettles, flax, willow, cedar bark. Native Americans along the Pacific Northwest coast used fine but tough roots of Sitka Spruce trees where they became exposed along banks of estuaries to weave baskets, hats, cloaks etc.

Braiding long lengths of hide cordage comes to mind. Coming from an Inuit perspective, a lot of our traditional cordage was hide. A large animal like a walrus or bearded seal is skinned in a spiral, it’s hide effective unwound and then dried into leather to be used in lashings or other applications other places where fibre rope would be used. Using a few of these assist in drying out the hide to prevent rot comes to mind. Thread it through the eyes, hammer it into the moss on a sunny and windy place and you’ll have reliable cordage in a few days. Add in that this was made of _mammoth_ ivory and you have a huge supply of hide for lashings at hand.

cordage is definitely among top 10 of important things to primitive living, cutting tools, firemaking, storage containers, shelter (clothing) are others, and yhey are more or less intertwined, having cordage makes the others easier, cutting tool nakes the others easier, fire...

Letting my imagination run free, I wondered how much a mammoth hide would weigh. The stone tools of that time were very sharp if knapped properly. I am certain that individuals had skills for any task at hand and probably "specialized" in tool making of each sort. Deer hide can make excellent clothing, while hides of thicker properties would make good foot-ware and so on. The materials used to make a rope would probably not survive the centuries, but the tool used to make the rope would survive longer. Flint knapping and shaft selection or modification may not have been done by the same individual, while affixing the "blade" to the shaft may have required another individual with that specialty, and actual hunting another skill set. This would give the death of an individual significant meaning to the group and may have lead to belief systems to pass on the knowledge to the survivors. Women were very central to these skill sets being passed down as they probably maintained the camp while the men were hunting and had the time and opportunity to pass on the skills. Just some thoughts.

@@joshuahadams I really like this explanation. The primitive knurling around the holes could have helped keep it taught as well.

@@joshuahadamsI think that you’re right. I noticed that the batons included in the grave all had a sharpened pointy end that suits them to be driven into the Earth to hold them in place while stringing cordage or strips of animal hide between them to dry strings out or straighten them or something like that.

I think thats a bit of an exaggeration.. nomadic likely, but not moving camp every day, nomadic in a sense thay stayed and use resources for a while weeks-months perhaps even years. The first settled farmers who was settled that herded animals and grew crops was about 11,000 years ago (what we can prove anyway), but it must have been a gradual process from hunter/gatheres to settlers/farmers, could very well be some settled/faremd thousands of years earlier... as the only transfere of knowledge was in direct contact with other ppl/groups its very hard to pinpoint or say for absolute certainty... ..but i belive thay could have been tools used in weaving and/or fabrication of clothes and/or thread... as many seems to have been decorated, it wasent sometimg u used and threw away... thers also much smaller variants of bones that seemde to have been used as early buttons for clothes, and some definetly for weaving...

@@Patrik6920 I view the items buried with the bodies as being the tools of those artisans, not as provisions for any future afterlife but as indication of the status of who the person was before they died. As to the different types & sizes some strike me as being parts of a loom, others for hand working, others parts of primitive spinning wheels, needles, shuttles, rope making, essentially a range of things associated with working fibers into useful items. Usually made of bone/ivory for their strength over those of wood. I don't see this to be specific to either nomadic or settled people. The decorated items very likely being made as gifts.

​@@ianthepelican2709 "The decorated items very likely being made as gifts." .. its one possibility, but its atleast certain thay where seen as more than 'one use'/scrap tools .. Personally i have some favorite tools, and its not unresonable assume these ppl had too, possibly decorating them in personal ways... or as gift or to indicate a value, a special purpose or simillar... i dont know if any pattern can bee seen of how some was decorated... one can make the assuption a tool for a specific purpose was decorated so others understood it, but i have no clue if thats the case, if thers enugh of simillar items to draw any conclutions .. or it could simply just be decorations .. with or without any meaning ... somehing we still frequently do as humans .. regarding burial, yes its seen frequently in the past ppl was buried with valuble items, or items that was used in thier line of work (as seen as a value to the group/tribe etc..) ..a hunter with a decorative spear, a farmer with a goat etc..

I agree nomads were truly that. Nomads. Not always staying just 1 night. But not for a season either. They carried tools with them. And a stick to hit people with it and likely a leather strap to strap it to themselves.

Nomads travel as a village. Not as individuals and families of two to so-many children. As a village they spead out individually making hunting groups to cover as wide an area as possible. These would divide themselves to smaller groups of individuals managing multiple tasks requiring holding animals in groups using pegs to hold them. Start from there.

Not sure what you're talking about with the different materials on most of the things you mentioned.. he specifically said they were made out of antler. The smallest of them seems to be at least over 6 inches so I'm not sure fish Hook would be in the cards and Bone and ivory can be brittle so hammering would be out of the question. They also weren't Sharp so I'm not sure how they could strip anything.. and stone Axe heads were usually secured with rope you have to remember this was the Stone age play they hadn't even discovered bronze yet.

Excellent article to bring to Stefan. Thank you for being the spark that ignited this excellent video.

Nice work bud.

Thanks from me too. I love how he looks at recent (Innuit) practices to shine a light. I hope they teach that archaeology school.

Thanks, Victor. Fascinating video!

The man himself! Thank you for your email Victor.

U beat me to it. We made rope in boy scouts with those.

@@EdwardPike they are still used today in the remote areas of south america and in the remote himalayan regions where they still join many villages to rebuild the rope suspension bridges

Story checks out. The one hole variation for arrows makes sense because you would need a lot of strength to draw the arrow through it. Requiring a strong material (bone stronger than wood) as well as a good size hand piece to hold on to. Thus there being only one hole.

Yeah, noted the same and just went "huh???" when this is talked about as a mystery or something.

@@JonnoPlays the larger ones found in the burial find are very large seeming to indicate that they were used for spear shaft straighteners , the atl atl has been in use for 30,000 years or so , but a straight shaft was critical for accuracy,

This is a very underrated comment.

@@colsandannie A lot of my comments hardly seem to go un-noticed.

Kinda what I thought right away too lol

Yea anything minimalist do is out of the norm but very practical

Lol, if someone finds my boxes of DIY alcohol stove testing parts they are gonna think I was some weird tin can alchemist

Wouldnt a true ultralight backpacker just forego the toothbrush altogether tho? 🤔

@@John_Redcorn_ a true ultralight backpacker would replace their limbs with aluminum prosthetics

You're making me think of spindle whorls; little decorated clay beads from meso America and Africa, which are used for yarn making, I believe.

It is interesting to see that some of the holes on the tools have pegs in them…

I just googled Swedish Ropee making tool.And the object is the exact same as what we just saw

When they all have rotating pegs in them, but yes, this is before the realization that you could do that, so it totally makes sense that this is an earlier version.

@@RegebroRepairs Perhaps some of the prehistoric ones did have pegs in them. Maybe the spiral scored lines in the holes were for screwing in the pegs - you would just have to be careful which way you rotated it. Or perhaps some were used as cranks to add twist, as in some of the photos of repslagning. We can’t assume that prehistoric people hadn’t figure out some of these things over the millennia.

The Irish used to make ‘ropes’ from hand twisting straw/hay/long grass called a sugán (soo-gone). Helped my great uncle make one in the 60s to bring back a neighbour’s donkey we found wandering.

It is certainly illustrative of a keen use of vocabulary, to paint a picture of us as a whole. Or so Jay thinks.

thats why sailing ships, especially the peak time right before the first steel warships that changed the game, are MY favourite goto topic. woodwork,yes very impressive. but the rope involved, its just nuts. a ship half the size of an passenger airplane had 3-5 times more rope used on the ships than the airplane uses in cables today. Which human being is able to do more than the standard shoe knot today? mostly sailors or job related stuff, but thats it. everything useful was made out of rope not even 300 years ago. Horses and ropes ruled the world. the sheer amount of knot techniques to make the mast +sail hold in the winds and storms of the ocean, all the ropework to get up into the masts. mezmerizing. AND think about "Castaway" with Tom Hanks. he was totally fucked and stuck on this island, till he figured out what fibres to use to make rope and he was able to knot his raft together to give it a proper go. this is what makes this movie stand out, in castaway scenarios, cause it shows the human evolution from making fire to former peak technology, rope making and sailing.

I think they were also handles for the rope. So the weight of the animal with the rope against their skin wouldnt hurt their hands.

You should write it!!

And let's not forget the magical plant preferred by thousands of years of rope makers and sailors

Try “Women’s Work - the first 2000 years”. Not a feminist manifesto, but a work on String and fiber arts. Who needs to tie things up, make bags, etc. with women doing lots of the day to day work of gathering being able to bundle things up means that much more bunches of grass, twigs, etc? E. Wayland Barber PhD

I thought the same thing. But this is way before arrows.

@@buffalobob2002 So spear or atlatl shafts.

Shaft straightener is the first thing that came to my mind.

​@@buffalobob2002who really knows when bows and arrows were first made ? Maybe they were made much earlier than archaeologists thought. In general, people seem to have been more advanced than thought. Think of the pyramids, the Stonehenge, the preshistoric temple in present day turkey.

​@@siddharthshekhar909yeah, we know *at least* how far back archery goes, but a wooden bow isn't likely to last 80k years

ai, pin this

That is almost certainly incorrect, for the simple reason that bows were not invented at the time these tools were used. There's also the issue that it would be far less effort to find a sapling, cut it down, denude it, and you have a quick and easy spear shaft that is straight enough for throwing or stick-throwing purposes. Plus, presumably the Palaeolithic tool-user was sophisticated enough to smooth out kinks using something similar to planing and lathing, both of which are conceptually simple and work really well on green wood.

Indeed one could be used as a shaft straightener or to apply force to something but not limited to an arrow tool. It seems like a handy device, almost like a multitool Swiss army knife. A rope maker, a rope anchor or hand hold, tensioner, applying pressure around arrowheads for wrapping or applying some kind of glue. If they were very common, they could have been used a a form of currency that could easily be traded or stockpiled. Possibly used in one of the many ways of making fire, just a handy thing to have that was valuable and readily used by almost everyone.

If you ever tried to make a spear shaft from a sapling you should know that as soon.as it starts to dry it warps, twist and bends in all directions. A 3/4 inch shaft is difficult to straighten without some focused leverage. The baton allows you to put pressure in the exact spot where need. Try making a straight spear with and without the baton a d you will quickly adapt it.

@@charlesmoffitt4811 Notice I said 'straight enough'. You don't need a perfectly straight spear to be functional for hunting, and a cut sapling will stay very straight. I have in fact, made walking sticks from saplings, which is fairly analogous. Plus, early humans would no doubt be intelligent enough to dry their wood evenly by controlling its moisture content (and is there anything better for that than living in a cave?)

lol me too XD

Not as a pestle for grinding up food?

Yep, my first thought...

Basic needs are eternal.

@@thePronto Some of them yes, but others...

Yes. They had to have something to scrape the snow, ice, and lichens off their cars in the winter. No? They didn't have cars? Oh.

Seriously, I imagine they were as intelligent as we are! I believe they would adapt and survive if they were dropped into our world, I'm not sure if the opposite would be true...

​@@wretchedmessthe idiots were killed off by harsh winters every year and predators.

The skeleton at 11:56? Those are sea shells, not rope. But yes, rope was definitely in their inventory and necessary for survival in many situations.

Yes and their clothes were sewn together with smaller twine.

Single holes can still be used for rope as well, you just have to use more than one together for however many plies you needed.

@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper yes. I can totally see how that would work too. When I saw in the video the one hole one it reminded me of the shaft straightener recovered at the Santa Cruz River site in Southern Az. But after seeing the whole video I was like oh yeah rope. That makes sense. But i left the shaft straightener post because it's interesting. thanks for chiming in. appreciated.

See dart/arrow straighteners: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower

It's entirely possible that some had more than one use. Why carry a shaft straightener and basically the same thing for making cordage if one tool can do both? Although, the spiral texture inside might not be the best for arrow shafts, you probably wouldn't want them gouging the surface of a freshly made shaft. El Senor, you linked to an atlatl, not a shaft straightener...those are generally rounded rocks with a groove to allow someone to press on a heated shaft until it's cool without burning themselves in the process. Although, keeping with the same theme as above, one could theoretically produce a shaft straightener, cordage tool, and atlatl all in one.

Except for the twist carvings

Spot on 😉 I think

Yes! I was thinking something along those lines. But why would they bury someone with something like that? I love and hate the mysteries of the ancient past 😅

My first thought when i started watching, started feeling dumb reading the other explanations until i found you, i suppose the theory has some weight then

@@hunterG60kif they believed that the buried person takes with them the objects in the grave to another life/realm, then they would use those for their tents, sails or such

Backpacks. Storage. Climbing...

Send us some of that weed you're smokin'.

She actually did a test of this very theory! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bN2mmJZ8ss7ck6s.htmlsi=1uKwBio3n9dsvKsa Looks very plausible.

Sally Pointer knows her stuff! I learnt to make cordage from her videos, and you don’t need a fancy tool, but just your fingers. You can make thin cordage from, for eg., nettles, etc., and then twist the thin cordage with other thin cordage to make it thicker, and so on. Since then, I’ve made useful natural cordage of varying thicknesses and sometimes very long lengths, very quickly, with no tools at all. So I’m not sure that the holed bone/antler/ivory is necessarily a cord making tool, nice though it would be to have solved the mystery. The tool was clearly important to the owners, as otherwise some of them wouldn’t be decorated.

Exactly, as a countrywoman I always have baler twine and a sharp penknife with me, even I am going out to a cocktail party.

This was my thought. If rope was crucial to your survival there would be groups who spent lots of time together making it. The creation of it is the ritual and the use is the practical aspect...if the way YOU help your group survive is sitting with 3-5 people and making rope for hours each day I am sure it wasn't long until stories, song, and myth became part of that process or a group would mourn the loss of someone who had been making rope with/for them for decades

Egyptian pharaohs had a shepherds crook as regalia. I doubt many of them were shepherds. Practical objects often take on symbolic significance

My first though was weaving tools. I made a belt using cards, and these batons reminded me of it. Would love it if we were able to find some intact clothing/fabric. I think they would be beautiful.

I got thrown off by the idea that she was a he. The tool assemblage would of course be different. I can easily see these being used for weaving. Since they would not be working with looms, I can see them being used instead of the beater on a loom, as a way to pack the weft neatly in place, after they are threaded through the weft of a backstrap loom. This makes a lot more sense now! I think working with textiles has been around a lot longer than most people suspect. The thing is, men's tools are often made in part of stone, and therefore last a long time, but women's tools are usually made of less stern stuff, and don't stay around forever. Ours were the baskets, the wooden spoons, the digging sticks, the twine and the things which all rot away, so little remains to show what we were doing, even though the things which we were tasked with making were vital to the survival of our families. When you read accounts of primitive cultures, including the more recently contacted ones of the most remote parts of the Amazon Basin, or in the the last parts of Africa to be explored in the early part of the last century, you see that about the only thing that the men did was hunt, and make tools for hunting or trapping. Cooking food, keeping the fire, making cooking vessels, weaving hammocks, making sandals (or or other footwear and clothing further north), gathering food, making baskets, nets, and a host of other necessary items, was the work of women, and because these are things that don't preserve well across the millennia, we rarely see them in archaeological assemblages, and when we do see them, it is only a part of the complete item.

@@laurabrown7912 Yep! We don't actually know when plant fibres first began being woven, but it must have been very early. The earliest signs of fibre use are a needle found 60,000 years ago of Denisovan make, and *dyed* multicolour fibres found in Georgia from 36,000 years ago in Dzudzuana cave. And made of flax, no less, which requires a complex process to process the fibres for use. It is my thinking that if the fibres were already dyed, then likely the fibre manufacture was older, as dying fibres is a complex skill. And these tools fit the bill, being 35,000 to 12,000 years old. These sorts of artefacts being tension-providing weights for weaving, shuttles, or simply sources of torsion would all make sense, particularly if the spiral grooves were not intentionally added but were instead wear-marks.

@@therat1117 The Dzudzuana excavation report is fantastic. They actually found imprints of flat needle knitting on pottery.

Funny because I saw the video show up in my feed just after I finished attaching a few buttons, so the pointed object with holes in the thumbnail made me think about a needle. 😅 Obviously I didn’t think it is a needle but likely some tool having to do with thread. Interesting how the male mind goes straight to something useful for hunting while the female mind goes to how it could be useful around the house, so to speak. 😅

Make a video !

Yeah, as much as I'm usually happily ensconced on "Team Ritual," I have to say that in this case I really think the most likely purpose for these is for use in rope-making (or rope-related activities). I mean, the multi-holed one looks remarkably like something I saw still being used to make rope on a replica 17th or 18th century ship.

She was buried with them, so bet she was the best of her village at making/splicing rope and she was respected for that. As soon as you mentioned the pointed end, I remembered seeing something similar when looking up instructions for splicing floating rope for a boat, if it ain't broke don't re-design it!

I'd buy one in a hot second.

This is where my head was at the whole video. A tool this prolific surely had more than one common use.

Twist carvings for rope

My first thought, when I saw it, was a hearth. To guide the spinning shaft. But I saw no evidence of any heat scaring. Guess I will watch, now.

I thought so too. Maybe also used as pitons for climbing hills/mountains.

Seems unlikely. Tent stakes usually aren't that hard to make from what you find nearby. If you were going to bring some with you, they might still be wood, since shoving them in and out of the ground repeatedly will wear them out and you might not want to waste bone or ivory on something that will get rapidly destroyed. Perhaps most importantly, a notch rather than a loop is actually the most convenient shape for a tent stage. Modern tent stakes, with near complete freedom in shape and material, always have something more like a notch, and honestly from my personal experience having to tie a string through the stake every time rather than just put a loop over the top sounds like a massive pain.

The went to the trouble to engrave rifled grooves into the holes also on the single-holed batons. This suggests a unity of intention with the multi-holed batons. Doesn't seem worth doing for mere tent pegs

@@digitalbrentable maybe when a tent is your home the pegs seem a bit more than just “mere”. I think that’s how we think of them for sure.

someday we'll find it, the thingmabob connection

you missed out the doofree doo and the doofer ;

Also handy for adjusting the Foofoo Valve.

A wigwam for a goose's bridle?

@@carolinereynolds2032 blowing bubbles for the kids using soap wort ?

Why have a hole when a knot will do? I think they have holes in order to let rope pass through. Maybe they are long and sharp on one end to be used as stakes in the ground or in wood. Maybe they are tools for rope making itself. Maybe the fibers are twisted and repeatedly drawn through the hole by hand to smooth or wax the rope. Edit: might be easy assumption because I wrote this before they talked about it

Hah this is EXACTLY what first came to mind for me also! Came here looking for similar comments and came across yours first 🙂 Makes perfect sense for them to be handles (as well as rope making tools and many other uses) Can easily imagine them being useful for leveraging rope to lift heavier weights than hands alone could do. Definitely useful for dragging that food back home. Another image that came to mine was a handle for a swinging rope weapon of some sort, possibly with a blunt or sharp object at the other end.

​@@johns1625A knot can slip along the baton length. A hole keeps it in one place. Also, much harder to lose with a hole.

Somebody pin this post.

Have you seen the examples of these bearing square holes instead of round?

it's a fun book, but it's brought up literally constantly in these circles. It's not an actual commentary on archaeology though.

Originally the batons were hypothesized to be ritual in nature. But over the decades, their extremely common appearance over huge amounts of time and geography pretty much killed that idea. Anything purely ritual doesn't last that long, especially pre-written language. These fictional archeologists would be pretty dumb if after finding step stools all over the place, in diverse environments, still thought they were ritualistic. Funny idea but not very realistic as far as basic logic that anyone should have.

Motel of the Mysteries

@@CorwinFound The ritualistic automobile.

​@@CorwinFoundI think people are a bit too dismissive of ritual as an explanation for things. Lots of commonplace, mundane, and practical things have a ritual element to them. A typical toilet absolutely has a ritualistic element to it: a strange cabinet in almost every house that locks from the inside with no other exits. A second separate basin from the main basin in the kitchen, usually with a mirror. Scented perfumes and soaps. A future archaeologists would be correct to deduce a sort of defecation ritual requiring total privacy and subsequent ablution. Contrast with open air and u-shaped communal toilets in ancient Rome.

Lady’s hairstylists were called Spinners in ancient days.

You really think we figured out how to look fancy first and then made survival easier and thus more likely afterwards? That feels like saying pottery was invented after people figured out how to make necklaces and hair beads from fired clay first..

@@Bassalicious You jest, but both of those sound like great theories to me.

@Bassalicious where did I say anyone was trying to "look fancy"? Braids are a practical way to keep hair out of one's way while doing other things, and braids keep hair from tangling into knots. Try to keep up.

@@cosmoplakat9549 I'm just saying it feels odd to me. I have long hair but if I didn't have anything I'd prefer a rope over braided hair to survive is what I'm saying. The technology is the same pretty much. My feeling is both came along more or less simultaneously. I'd think hair was cut or bound by other means previously. Also hair doesn't really knot that easily when you don't wash the talcum off every so often. I think modern hygiene is skewing our picture there.

@@HedonisticPuritan-mp6xv if you can get good mushrooms, you don't need to look through a hole in an antler. You're probably better off leaving the cave, listening to the birds sing and watching the sun rise...

Big ass reefers!😂😂😂

Bears?🐻

I suspect smarter, as they only had natural materials, and live and dangerous food to work with.

@@telebubba5527 Autocabbage!

Interesting idea. I feel that antler or bone would be too light to work for that, plus one might just tie one end around a stone for a similar result.

Yes, a “fid” or “fib”. Sold them in a hardware store where I worked, but I never could figure them out.

Why do you have twist carvings in your arrow straightener?

that makes complete sense for the single hole ones to be used as a handle for rope pulling. you would put the end of the rope through the hole then wind it around the shaft a few times. It would certainly save the hands in cold weather.

Kul att se lite nordisk representation! I just made a comment that old Swedish rope making techniques used tools like this. Check that one!

Fastening them with a nice bow under his chin was the cherry on top. :D

"When I've got these antlers on I am dictating, and when I take them off I'm not dictating."

What I'm learning from this comment section is that the uses for a "lightweight thingy with a whole drilled in it" are limited only by one's imagination.

Is that like a Marlin spike? Used for loosening knots. Seems like "fid" is on the edge of my brain

you aren't the only one to say this

Some probably were. Stone "arrow straighteners" might have been early weaving weights. Microscopic wear patterns inside the holes of these "batons" might be useful in telling whether they were used with wood, hide or plant fibers.

Since these are 40k-15k years old and chickens only came about 10k-4k years ago in SE Asia, it would probably be some other prehistoric galliform. I think during this time period, hunting small game was less common due to the small return on investment of effort vs the megafauna that were still around. There is a change in hunting weapons over time as megafauna became less common, hunting weapons for small game become more common.

The shape would certainly lend itself to this task, but the use of the difficult to work ivory, would seem to me to be overkill, when an easier to work piece of wood is far quicker to make

@@bigoldgrizzly for a rabbit snare level of tension wood is fine, for a bear or elk snare the amount of tension needed will pinch wood and foul the trigger. For large traps you need bone or antler.

@@boden8138 I bow to your experience Sir ! The only snaring [snickling] I have done is for rabbit and fox. Distinct shortage of Bear and elk in Yorkshire :