The oldest known war was fought with slingshots

[toysoldier]

The news is a couple of years old, but its interest enough to resurrect.

Articles in first post

[toysoldier]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/...51216092426.htm

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/...70802182042.htm

 

Earliest Evidence For Large Scale Organized Warfare In The Mesopotamian

World

A huge battle destroyed one of the world's earliest cities

at around 3500 B.C. and left behind, preserved in their places, artifacts

from daily life in an urban settlement in upper Mesopotamia, according to

a joint announcement from the University of Chicago and the Department of

Antiquities in Syria.

"The whole area of our most recent excavation was a war zone," said

Clemens Reichel, Research Associate at the Oriental Institute of the

University of Chicago. Reichel, the American co-director of the

Syrian-American Archaeological Expedition to Hamoukar, lead a team that

spent October and November at the site. Salam al-Quntar of the Syrian

Department of Antiquities and Cambridge University was Syrian co-director.

Hamoukar is an ancient site in extreme northeastern Syria near the Iraqi

border.

The discovery provides the earliest evidence for large scale organized

warfare in the Mesopotamian world, the team said.

The team found extensive destruction with collapsed walls, which had

undergone heavy bombardment by sling bullets and eventually collapsed in

an ensuing fire. Work during an earlier season showed the settlement was

protected by a 10-foot high mud-brick wall.

The excavators retrieved more than 1,200 smaller, oval-shaped bullets

(about an inch long and an inch and a half in diameter) and some 120

larger round clay balls (two and half to four inches in diameter). "This

clearly was no minor skirmish. This was 'Shock and Awe' in the Fourth

Millennium B.C.," Reichel said.

Excavations at Hamoukar have played an important role in redefining

scholar's understanding of the development of civilization. Earlier work

had contended that cities first developed in the lower reaches of the

Euphrates valley, the area often referred to as Southern Mesopotamia.

Those early urban centers, part of the Uruk culture, established colonies

that led to the civilization of the north, as the people sought raw

materials such as wood, stone, and metals which are absent in southern

Mesopotamia.

Work at Hamoukar, first undertaken by McGuire Gibson, Professor at the

Oriental Institute, between 1999 and 2001 showed that some of the elements

associated with civilization developed there independently of influences

in the south. The latest work suggests that the two forces may have had a

violent confrontation at Hamoukar.

"It is likely that the southerners played a role in the destruction of

this city," Reichel said. "Dug into the destruction debris that covered

the buildings excavated this season were numerous large pits that

contained vast amount of southern Uruk pottery from the south. The picture

is compelling. If the Uruk people weren't the ones firing the sling

bullets they certainly benefited from it. They took over this place right

after its destruction."

Ironically, for archaeological work, ancient warfare has its advantages,

especially when the besieged people may have been surprised. "Whatever was

in these buildings was buried in them, literally waiting to be retrieved

by us." In addition to many objects of value that are left behind, buried

under massive amounts of debris, such "frozen contexts" are vital for

functional analyses, helping to identify architectural units as domestic

units, cooking facilities, production sites or buildings of administrative

or religious use.

The mid-fourth millennium B.C. settlement at Hamoukar has many

distinctively urban features. The area excavated so far contains two large

building complexes built around square courtyards. Though both buildings

follow closely a house plan known from other sites in Syria and Iraq,

their function seems to have been non-domestic.

One of the structures contained a large kitchen with a series of large

grinding stones embedded in clay benches and a baking oven large enough to

fill a whole room, suggesting that food production occurred here beyond

the needs of a single household. Each complex also contained a tripartite

building (a unit consisting of a long central room surrounded by smaller

rooms).

Objects retrieved from one of them, excavated in 2001, included stamp

seals and clay sealings (lumps of clay used to close containers, usually

impressed with a seal), suggesting that it was used as a storage and

redistribution center for commodities. More stamp seals and over 100 clay

sealings were found in 2005, including some sealings with incised drawings

instead of seal impressions indicating that similar activities occurred in

the second complex. The new data lends further proof to the theory,

suggested first after the 1999-2001 excavations, that a city existed at

Hamoukar during mid-fourth millennium B.C.

Work this season reinforced that certain elements of technological

specialization were already present at Hamoukar several hundred years

earlier than the time of the settlement's destruction.

This season three trenches were excavated in the southern area of the site

where previous survey work had shown the presence of countless pieces of

obsidian, both blades and production debris dating to the mid-to-late

fifth millennium B.C., spread over an area of 700 - 800 acres.

"Finding production debris is actually as important, if not more

important, than finding actual stone tools," explained Salam al-Quntar,

pointing out a well-preserved obsidian core from which long, narrow blades

had been flaked off in a radial pattern. "A settlement of 700 or more

acres cannot have existed in the fifth millennium B.C.," al-Quntar says,

"so we are assuming that this is a smaller 'shifting' settlement, which

over centuries 'moved' across the area of the site. Little architecture

has been found so far, but the remains of a storage room, which contained

numerous large storage vessels, were identified, and numerous clay 'eye

idols' assumed to be connected with cultic activities."

The nature of the contact that Hamoukar entertained with the south at that

time remains to be investigated more fully. Reichel points out certain

similarities that the architecture of Hamoukar shows with buildings in

southern Mesopotamia, notably in the layout of the tripartite buildings.

Some seal designs also show scenes resembling motives found in southern

Mesopotamia and southwestern Iran. The pottery and almost all the other

artifacts from the excavated area, however, were entirely of local

character, betraying no southern influence. "We assume that some trade

relations existed with the Uruk culture, but there is no evidence of Uruk

control or domination over Hamoukar before the destruction," he said. But

the southern Uruk clearly dominates the layers just above the destruction.

 

The 2005 season was the fourth season of archaeological work at Hamoukar.

Between 1999 and 2001 three seasons were conducted under the

co-directorship of McGuire Gibson. Following a four year hiatus and the

2003 Iraq War, in a political climate now overshadowed by misgivings

between the U.S. and Syria, the resumption of a joint Syrian-American

archaeological venture at this time on a site located so close to the

border with Iraq may seem surprising.

Little if any problems could be reported, however, said Reichel, who

praised the cooperation of Syrian government officials who issued

excavation permit swiftly and offered logistical support. "They welcomed

us like old friends."

Abdal-Razzaq Moaz, Deputy Minister of Cuture, in charge of Archaeology and

Cultural Heritage, Syria, said, "Excavations at Hamoukar have played an

important role in redefining scholar's understanding of the rise and

development of civilization in the world. The resumption of a joint

Syrian-American archaeological venture at this time shows the Syrians are

interested to have such collaboration in the field of archaeology which

allowed to have cultural exchange and mutual understanding between the two

people, and to share a world heritage which belong to all the humanity."

Besides the University of Chicago, Princeton, and the University of

Pennsylvania and other universities have teams doing archaeological work

in Syria, he said.

 

New Details Of First Major Urban Battle Emerge Along With Clues About

Civilization's Origins

Science Daily — New details in the tragic end of one of the world's

earliest cities as well as clues about how urban life may have begun there

were revealed in a recent excavation in northeastern Syria that was

conducted by the University of Chicago and the Syrian Department of

Antiquities.

 

"The attack must have been swift and intense. Buildings collapsed, burning

out of control, burying everything in them under vast pile of rubble,"

said Clemens Reichel, the American co-director of the Syrian-American

Archaeological Expedition to Hamoukar. Reichel, a Research Associate at

the University's Oriental Institute, added that the assault probably left

the residents destitute as they buried their dead in the ruins of the

city.

Reichel made that assessment of the battle that destroyed Hamoukar about

3500 B.C. after an excavation was conducted in September and October at

the site near the Iraqi border. The team uncovered further evidence of the

accomplishments of the inhabitants among the remains of the walled city

dating to the fourth millennium B.C.

In addition to the wall, the team has uncovered quasi-industrial

installations and two large administrative buildings that had been

destroyed by an intense fire. It was at the site that, mixed in with the

debris from the collapsed wall, that over 1,000 egg-shaped sling bullets

were found in 2005, leading the excavators to conclude that an early act

of warfare had caused the end of the settlement.

Work in this past season may explain how powerful the early weapons were.

"We literally have them at all stages of use, from manufacture to impact,"

Reichel said, pointing out that the team found a sling bullet that had

pierced the plaster of a mud brick wall. The team also found 12 graves in

the debris, very likely of people killed in the battle.

The team discovered several rooms with walls up to six feet high in which

more than 1,100 sling bullets were found mixed in with collapsed walls and

roofs. They also found a shallow pit into which a water jar had been

buried to its rim in the floor of one of the rooms. This pit, ordinarily

used to soak discarded clay sealings to recycle them into fresh sealing

clay, was used to make sling bullets during the city's final hours. This

was indicated by two dozen sling bullets than were lined up neatly along

its edge.

"It looks as if they were--quite literally--throwing everything they could

find against the aggressors," Reichel said.

Hamoukar was on a key trade route that led from Anatolia (modern-day

Turkey) across Northern Syria and the river Tigris into Southern

Mesopotamia. Some evidence of this long-lasting trade was found in an area

to the south of Hamoukar's main site-- a large mound. The team found

obsidian fragments in an area of over 700 acres (280 hectares), which they

dated to 4,500 -- 4,000 B.C. using pottery fragments found with the

obsidian. In addition to tools and blades, the team found large amounts of

production debris such as cores, a discovery that is even more significant

than finding actual tools.

"Finding cores and other production debris tells us that they are not just

using these tools here, they are making them here," Salam al-Kuntar, the

Syrian co-director of the expedition, explained. Obsidian does not occur

around Hamoukar but had to be brought in from Turkey with the nearest

sources being over 70 miles away.

The discovery of an obsidian processing center is significant, Reichel

added, for it could explain the emergence of a city in this location at

such an early time. A large-scale export of tools to Southern Mesopotamia

would have resulted in significant revenue and accumulation of wealth.

"This could have been the incentive that pulled people off their fields.

People specialized instead of ploughing their own fields they bought their

food supplies from surrounding villages. And once people accumulated a

fortune they want a walled enclosure to protect it--your first city."

Unlike in southern Mesopotamia, therefore, the prime mover towards

urbanism appears to have been economic incentive, not coercion.

The obsidian workshops were located off the main mound and predate the

destroyed city by several hundred years, but numerous older levels have

already been noted below the destroyed buildings in small test trenches.

"We have no clear idea how far the first city at Hamoukar goes back in

time," Reichel said. "It could be much earlier than 3,500 B.C."

By the time the city was destroyed, he added, copper had started to

replace obsidian as key raw material for tools. The discovery of numerous

copper tools in the ruins of Hamoukar might indicate that Hamoukar had

followed developed from an obsidian into a copper processing center,

possibly also exporting copper tools to the south.

The discovery could lead the way to providing an additional explanation

for how civilization developed in the Fertile Crescent. In the south,

urban society emerged in the Uruk culture in response to the needs of

providing organization to an economy supported by an irrigation-based

agriculture.

The latest findings from Hamoukar suggest that the specialized

mass-production of goods for trade could have been a similar driving force

in the North.

 

 

and a dedicated site: http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/ham/

Edited August 3, 2007 by toysoldier

[KingSargent]

Them's not sling bullets! Stupid arkywhatzits don't know grapeshot when they see it.....

 

 

BSF, the finding of sling bullets does not mean that that is all that was used, just that that is what has survived for thousands of years. Wooden weapons, for example, would deteriorate.

 

I am not so sure about the dating of the knowledge of metals either. Considering the condition weapons 1000 years old are found in, does anybody really think that metal weapons 3000 years or more old would survive in recognizable condition?

[Guest aevans]

BSF, the finding of sling bullets does not mean that that is all that was used, just that that is what has survived for thousands of years. Wooden weapons, for example, would deteriorate.

 

A few score slingers could easily hurl thousands of projectiles over the course of a siege. They were probably used to keep the defenders off the top of the wall while scaling ladders and/or other siege equipment was brought up.

[toysoldier]

scaling ladders and/or other siege equipment was brought up.

 

the other equipment most likely would be wooden shubles. It was only a 10 ft drymud wall... with enough slingshot cover, a sapper team could open a hole really fast.

 

@KS, probably there weren´t metal weapons there... i suppose most was bladed or tipped with the very same obsidiane that was part of the loot. And probably the atackers picked up any weapon they found along dead defenders. But the slingshot proyectiles embedded on the mud, i gues it was too much work for them to recover them.

[Yama]

Them's not sling bullets! Stupid arkywhatzits don't know grapeshot when they see it.....

BSF, the finding of sling bullets does not mean that that is all that was used, just that that is what has survived for thousands of years. Wooden weapons, for example, would deteriorate.

 

I am not so sure about the dating of the knowledge of metals either. Considering the condition weapons 1000 years old are found in, does anybody really think that metal weapons 3000 years or more old would survive in recognizable condition?

 

True to a point, but very old weapons made of wood & metals have been found. It depends from material & conditions. Ötzi the Iceman(who died over 5000 years ago) for example had a copper axe with him. I think oldest bows found have been in excess of 10 000 years old, and oldest spears much older.

[JWB]

Them's not sling bullets! Stupid arkywhatzits don't know grapeshot when they see it.....

BSF, the finding of sling bullets does not mean that that is all that was used, just that that is what has survived for thousands of years. Wooden weapons, for example, would deteriorate.

 

I am not so sure about the dating of the knowledge of metals either. Considering the condition weapons 1000 years old are found in, does anybody really think that metal weapons 3000 years or more old would survive in recognizable condition?

So long as the copper hasn't corroded down to nothing the impurities/alloys can be used to date the metal.

[pikachu]

Actually, even in situations in which metal weapons had corroded to nonexistence, they can still be identified by the trace metal oxides left behind in regular shapes and concentrations. Sort of like fossils, but of the never-living variety. The caveat, of course, is that you have to know the place would have such traces left to start looking for them. Having more obvious artifacts like sling bullets helps pinpoint the location.

[Colin]

Have they found any 8" stones yet?

[WillisPD]

Have they found any 8" stones yet?

yes, in one of the the Romagavin's

[Sailor Lars]

I think they went on much bigger shots " after a while passed, than a meagerly 8".

[KingSargent]

Actually, even in situations in which metal weapons had corroded to nonexistence, they can still be identified by the trace metal oxides left behind in regular shapes and concentrations. Sort of like fossils, but of the never-living variety. The caveat, of course, is that you have to know the place would have such traces left to start looking for them. Having more obvious artifacts like sling bullets helps pinpoint the location.

There is also the fact that metal use long before it is supposed to have happened would upset a lot of archaeological applecarts. It would take more than traces of oxides to produce anything more than academic squabbling.

[JWB]

There is also the fact that metal use long before it is supposed to have happened would upset a lot of archaeological applecarts. It would take more than traces of oxides to produce anything more than academic squabbling.

Finding mere traces would upset the applecarts because copper doesn't naturally exist in Mesopotamia.

[KingSargent]

Finding mere traces would upset the applecarts because copper doesn't naturally exist in Mesopotamia.

Then where did they get the diodes for their dry cells?

[JWB]

Then where did they get the diodes for their dry cells?

I'm not sure I understand your question but the copper was mined in what is now Turkey. > http://www.turizm.net/turkey/history/chalcholithic.html

[Corinthian]

I'm not sure I understand your question but the copper was mined in what is now Turkey. > http://www.turizm.net/turkey/history/chalcholithic.html

 

I think what King was driving at was the so-called "Baghdad Battery"

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_battery

 

 

The first ever war involved fists, teeth and feet. It immediately escalated to the development and use of the Mk1 rock.

Edited August 5, 2007 by TomasCTT

[Darth 44]

"Have they found any 8" stones yet?"

 

"yes,in one of the Romagavin`s"

 

Looks like the poor citizens of that ancient town

were screaming for Stone Support!

 

[TonyE]

The legions were screaming for 8inch Scorpio and 16inch ballista support!

The testudo formation was the Gavin of the ancient world! (although commonly refered to as the Gavinius in the wide ranks of the army)

[Mk 1]

IIt immediately escalated to the development and use of the Mk1 rock.

 

-Mark 1

[Archie Pellagio]

When you say sling-shot you mean slings right? (ie not Bart Simpson but David v goliath)

[Lyle, Bob]

Bart-Simpson slingshots require rubber. So, yeah, David style.

 

Bows and arrows are labor intensive, slings are cheap. In a pastoral society shepherds have plenty of time to practice with slings they make themselves and stones they find. Sling stones are pretty good on small game and disouraging predators, and sheep or goats are not spooked by wild arm motions. Hunting societies have the incentive to use bows that are more effective against medium and larger game, and is less likley to "spook" the game. Agrarian societies tend to specialize and the warior class often adopt the bow, as people are medium sized and spook easily.

 

We know from th Amerca's that you can have complex societies and massive warfare without metals. No surprizes, but

nice to see our surmises are correct.

 

Hmm, cities tend to be built by agrarian societies, the sling by pastoral...

[shep854]

According to a "Scientific American" article I read long ago, slings were very popular and deadly. In the article, it was stated that a good slinger could hit a man-sized target at well over 100 yds. Cast lead sling bullets were widely used. As mentioned above, sling volleys could be deadly. I don't remember figures, but a trained slinger should have been able to give the bullet pretty good velocity (hence energy). David did not bounce a marble off Goliath's forehead. When the Bible says that the stone "sank into his forehead," that is what actually happened, given the potential of a sling in skilled hands.

Edited November 4, 2007 by shep854

[DougRichards]

I don't think that anyone has mentioned the sling-staff, also known as a fustibale. yet, in some ways the precurser to the single arm onager, but of course without the stored energy using torsion.

 

Even the story of David and Goliath has some room to consider that David was using a sling staff rather than an ordinary hand sling:

 

Quote from 1 Sam 17

 

40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

 

41 Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. 43 He said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?"

 

 

Why would David take a staff as well as a sling, when a staff would be little use against an armoured opponent larger than himself? It is more likelt that he carried a sling-staff, which as a shepherd he could use as a sling, or as a standard staff where necessary, without having to change weapons. This idea was suggested in John Peddy's "The Roman War Machine".

[shep854]

DougRichards,

 

That's the first I have heard of a "sling-staff." Did it give more energy to the slung bullet? In trying to visualize using one, it seems awkward to use.

 

What I am imagining is a sling on the end of a staff. After loading a bullet into the pouch, the user waves the staff in a circle, with the sling outward. How would the slinger release the bullet at the correct time for accuracy?

[KingSargent]

DougRichards,

 

That's the first I have heard of a "sling-staff." Did it give more energy to the slung bullet? In trying to visualize using one, it seems awkward to use.

 

What I am imagining is a sling on the end of a staff. After loading a bullet into the pouch, the user waves the staff in a circle, with the sling outward. How would the slinger release the bullet at the correct time for accuracy?

It's the same principle as an Atlatl or 'spearthrower.' It gives a longer movement arm and more leverage - hence force - to the throw.

 

I imagine there are many techniques, but I know is to have the pouch with the loose end draped on a hook that is angled to release the pouch on a flat(tish) trajectory at the moment of maximum impulse, like was used on the trebuchet.