Abstract
Ability to throw was probably achieved at an early stage of human evolution but has received little scholarly attention. Although this ability is poorly developed in apes, anatomical studies suggest that the hand of Australopithecus afarensis was adapted to throw with precision and force. Archaeological evidence and early ethnographic observations are cited in order to demonstrate the importance of throwing skill in human evolution.
Introduction
The possible importance of throwing in human evolution has received very little scholarly attention. For the last hundred years or so, the throwing of unmodified stones and the wielding of sticks has been mentioned in various accounts of aggression among peoples without highly developed technolologies. Nevertheless modern scholars seem unaware that throwing stones could have made a significant contribution to early hominid survival.
The ethnographic and historic record
Australian aboriginals are reported to use stones to bring down game, though the animals killed were relatively small. But the literature of initial encounters between civilized man and people without sophisticated weapons includes many mentions of serious human casualties resulting from stone-throwing. In the fourteenth century, attacks by Portuguese armed with crossbows were successfully repelled by indigenous Canary Islanders who had only horn-tipped wooden lances and stones:
In hardly any time at all they had so badly beaten us that they had driven us back into shelter with heads bloodied, arms and legs broken by blows from stones; because they know of no other weaponry, and believe me they throw and wield a stone considerably more skilfully than a Christian; it seems like the bolt of a crossbow when they throw it: and they are very nimble people: they run like hares.
In a later encounter in the Canaries:
It happened that when the cross-bow men shot their bolts they did little harm, for the Guanches never remained in one place, but kept moving about, so that it was difficult to take aim..They hurled stones with much more effect, breaking a shield in pieces and the arm behind it.
During Pacific exploration by later expeditions equipped with firearms, both La Perouse and Captain Cook were attacked with stones, resulting in serious injuries - not usually initially fatal, but disabled casualties were finished off with clubs. Cook was himself killed in such an encounter. Wood's Natural History of Man (1870) reports that
Many a time, before the character of the natives was known, has an armed soldier been killed by a totally unarmed Australian. The man has fired at the native, who, by dodging about has prevent the enemy from taking correct aim, and then has been simply cut to pieces by a shower of stones, picked up and hurled with a force and precision that must be seen to be believed...
Early encounters with Hottentots and Fuegians produced similar reports. In Tanzania, a personal account had been received of a zebra which was first stunned with a stone and then killed on the ground with a knife.
Distances, size and accuracy
There is limited information on this, though one source claims that Hottentots can "hit a target the size of a coin with a stone at 100 paces." Cricket balls (225g) can be thrown 100m. Museums contain objects listed as "war hand-stones" (illustrated by drawings) big enough to support La Perouse's estimate that stones can be thrown weighing up to 1400g.
Throwing by Primates
Goodall and others report that chimpanzees throw rocks with good aim but insufficient force. Throwing is often part of a display to achieve dominance in the group. In one case a rock was seen to be thrown in the course of a hunt for a bushpig.
Anatomical and Physiological Evidence
Mary Marzke has done extensive research on primate hands. She found that australopithecine hands (whilst lacking some of the powers of our own hands) would have been able to handle and hold small stones in a "3-jaw chuck grip":
The advantage of the 3-jaw chuck grip is that it permits the control of small, light stones..Controlled rotation of the trunk on the hindlimb increases the velocity..by its contribution of trunk leverage to the leverage of arm, forearm, wrist and fingers...Throwing could have been an effective component of (australopithecine) strategies for food acquisition and protection from predators.
Traces in the Archaeological Record
Archaeologists working on early sites have long been puzzled by large numbers of unmodified stones of a type unsuitable for flaked tools. These are smaller on australopithecine sites as befits the smaller animals concerned. There can be no proof of how these stones were used. But how could this "apparently vulnerable naked ape" without canine weapons survive on the open savanna without some means of defence?
About 1.8 million years ago, hominids began to eat more meat than other primates. Flint tools were increasingly made which could cut it up - but how did they obtain it in the first place? Bushmen have been seen clearing lions from a kill by throwing clods of earth and this kind of active scavenging appears a possibility. It is noticeable that most early archaeological sites are associated with stream channels, where pebbles would have been plentiful.
Conclusions
1. Apes can throw but have not developed this skill as we have.
2. Stone throwing has proved highly effective when more sophisticated weapons are lacking.
3. The Australopithecus afarensis hand and erect posture were well adapted for throwing.
4. Stones usable as missiles are found on early archaeological sites.