00:00.88 David Welcome back to episode one seventy of a live neurons podcast I'm David Howe here with Carlton Gober and Dr Devin Pedigrew also Dr Gover should add that. Um, so we we want to move on to the other papers but I do want to ask when I typed in trialabate points. The second thing that comes up as your recent paper. Um, so the my question would be 1 I'm assuming these were used by horse archers um, if they're precursors to the scythians and 2 do you have any idea why that style took off around the ancient world or was it designed for shooting other horses or something or. Um. 00:39.80 Devin Well yeah, if you add additional blades and they and the arrow penetrates. Well you get ah a much worse wound. You know, especially like a 3 bladed wound. It's really hard to treat that and it's it's just more deadly. So so if you're shooting at horses. 00:46.62 David A. 00:56.70 Devin Yes, certainly a horse is on the battlefield you want to use a big broadhead and people talked about that in the medieval period in in Europe actually the long bow is extremely could be extremely effective at defeating horses. So if you have a Calgary charge at a good group of archers. I mean that can go very badly for the the calvary. Um, so that's part of it as the print. Yes, exactly? Um, so yes, broadheads are effective there and 3 blades can make worse wounds. 01:15.82 alifeinruins Yeah, as the French learned at ashour. 01:33.24 Devin But what's interesting on the northern steps and I can't get into this in too much detail but these bronze points are essentially copying bone points that came about. Towards the end of the bronze age and I think there were a use certainly earlier in the bronze age. But by the end of the bronze age on the steps. The bone points these socketed triangular and trilobate boned bone points were becoming really popular and then they were replaced. In the early iron age by bronze points which is interesting that they switched over to bronze but 1 of the ideas in the in the iron age but 1 of the ideas here is that to make a 3 bladed point from iron is actually very challenging and it takes a lot of effort. Romans were using 3 bladed iron points. So it shows how you know important it was for them to make that style point from from iron but earlier on they were casting him out of bronze and so the idea is it's easier to cast them from bronze. And if they were working better better on the the battlefield then that helps explain why they they spread you know relatively rapidly. 02:55.30 David Yeah, okay now that's pretty fascinating. It's also got me thinking Oh you just I was watching Kingdom of heaven the other day and I was thinking too just when you were talking like this sheer and not even the dead bodies but you got to pull all of those dead horses off the battlefield as well. 02:59.15 alifeinruins And no go sorry. 03:14.98 David Um, and that probably took much more labor or you just left the horses to rot I don't know, but but um, well my my thought assumption before that was that you just tried your best not to shoot horses because it's extra money for you when you get those the other army's horses. But. Kind of unavoidable when you're you're in stirups attached to 1 but. 03:36.88 Devin Yeah I think the tactics just you know, changed and evolved it during the time to whatever they needed to do if if you got to shoot the horse out from under the guy to get the guy then that's what you do if we can capture the worse then that's what you do, but it just. 03:51.13 David Um, yeah. 03:56.51 Devin You know depends on the moment and so. 03:57.41 David Right? Okay, well Carlton take it away. 03:59.20 alifeinruins And and yeah and and like speaking to when when Dr Pedigre was talking about you know, triangular points do more damage triangular bayonetss are like banned by the geneva convention because they are like impossible to stitch out like lessons. We learned for world war one you know so just kind of. 04:13.80 Devin Yeah. 04:18.73 alifeinruins Showing the efficacy of those things. Um, yeah, yeah, the duch Damon I have it Chris get this in? Um, but this is another example like you can your work continues to show here are these assumptions that. 04:19.10 Devin Yeah, that's a good point. 04:20.70 David My. 04:37.12 alifeinruins Archeologists in the field have made about projectile weapons how we measure them how we can tell things about the past and they're look systematically through the scientific method deconstructing their arguments using the math and being like this is actually how this works right? So with the iron age stuff. You're looking at like well the first guys simulated with his clay. This is why Clay is not a good indicator for this. Um and then kind of shifting gears here I wanted to talk more about um the terminal ballistic system of addlale darts and arrows so that is the conglomeration of several different. 05:16.69 Devin Car is for yeah, a carcass experiments feet. 05:18.80 alifeinruins Experiments and so what I was looking for Clark experiments. So the 3 bison the goats is the pig data included in this too. 05:24.72 Devin Yes, the hog 2 goats and 2 bison I haven't the third bison is is brand new. 05:32.95 alifeinruins Okay, so if Devin was on Nozark there wouldn't any be any animals left on the planet. Yeah, nothing with them right? Um, but like what and I and I was very fortunate and privileged enough to take part in those experiments whether just like holding a camera. 05:35.31 Devin But. 05:36.90 David No on you. Its at least here. 05:50.72 alifeinruins Um, getting to throw darts myself and just being a part of that whole fun process across across the west. Um, but I want to kind of pull. Everyone's attention to this paper on figure 7 on page 13 a pedigre at all 2023 the figure ah momentum and ah was a velocity as predictors of penetry. 06:15.80 Devin Ah, yes, we're looking at terminalistics of stone tipped out little dart scenarios figure 7 shows, genetic energy and momentum fitted out against the wound service area. And the total penetration depth. 06:34.17 alifeinruins Yeah, and you have a couple different indicators here. So we're looking at arrows basket make it darts um, different types of kain. So I imagine so what does can l kane a and Cain H stand for. 06:46.38 Devin Just the weights. So KH is k to heavy k m is k em and then k light KL yeah 06:49.22 alifeinruins Okay. 06:50.27 David A. 06:53.18 alifeinruins Okay, and then you have composite. 06:58.45 Devin Yeah, those are the composite darts are these very heavy darts I started making to try and increase the sample and improve the the projectiles because the thing about projectiles that people need to remember. And that we keep screwing up is that they're extremely variable um the same projectile technology will be extremely variable and you're going to have a significant amount of overlap in their ballistics. So. A huge amount of overlap in the connectic air energy momentum of an arrow relative to a dart because you happen to have arrows that are according to the english from the medieval from the Tudor period half pounds and they're being shot by Bose. Pulling up two hundred and eighty pounds draw on the battlefield right? and they're penetrating steel metal plate metal armor. So so you have that arrow and then you have an arrow that's shot by a little bit £20 bushman bow. 07:54.60 David Damn. 08:12.52 Devin That's just tiny and the point is to get poison into the bloodstream of the animal those are going to leave entirely different signatures in the ecological record those types of bows and era of you know both. But that's 1 weapon technology. So um. 08:23.27 alifeinruins Hold Sorry someone is not. 08:31.23 Devin So that's a ah problem for us because because we tend to to kind of essentialize um projectile technology as if you can you know, boil them down to to these kind of essential features. 08:46.12 alifeinruins I Mean sorry about that. 08:47.51 David Right? Yeah and like everybody even in like ah within the same culture I'd imagine somebody has their own specific way of wanting their atlatles and like when we were shooting the ones on that mountaintop. 08:57.57 Devin Um, um. 09:06.20 David Like you gave her that really really thick happy 1 I'm assuming was your composite and like that felt really good to throw but it was too big for the atlattle itself. Um, but I'd imagine even if the points are pretty ubiquitous throughout like a region in time period. 09:09.48 Devin Yeah, right. 09:21.69 David The atlattle shafts could be way longer or thicker depending on what the person wanted to so. 09:25.20 Devin Yeah I mean you can have extreme variability in that model shaft and hold the point or less constant or you can do the opposite. You can have a pretty you know a bunch of guys people throwing a little darts that are all very similar but the points are all hugely different in size. All that Works. It's all acceptable. So So the problem here that we're trying to deal with in these naturalistic experiments is. We're trying to assess the performance of projectile points against that backdrop of Variability. So we're trying to. 09:45.71 David Right. 10:03.73 Devin Use different sizes of of dart shafts primarily that we could do the same with arrows our arrow sample is is much smaller for this but but the focus was mainly on darts and we wanted some arrows just for a comparison. So that's why there's all these different sizes of darts. 10:18.46 David Um, yeah. 10:22.50 Devin This graph. 10:23.87 David Um, I mean I know the answer to this question but I I just wanted to I'll have you answer it for the audience but like the extreme variability of these graphs and why they're so not to say why they're so colorful. But. What are the importance of these graphs and like why they're complicated and complex because in your experiment clearly they need to be. 10:44.89 Devin Yeah, right? So the point of all the different colors and shapes is to allow the the reader to pull in a lot of data with 1 little figure right. 11:00.76 David And. 11:02.29 Devin And to try and figure out what's going on to to see the differences. So as you're looking at this graph you see Kinetic energy and you can actually see that the the projectiles are grouping pretty well and how much kinetic energy they're carrying as the darts get bigger. They carry a lot more kinetic energy. 11:15.34 David A. 11:20.65 Devin That's not surprising at all because we know from past work that as projectile thrown projectiles get heavier. They become more efficient for people to throw up to a point of diminishing returns and where you hit that point of diminishing returns depends on the skill and strength of the thrower. But um. 11:37.87 David Right. 11:40.60 Devin But as a general rule of thumb. They're going to carry more energy as they get bigger and that's true for single throwers as well as for large groups of throwers. So just for me a heavier dart carries more energy done a really light one and what this is showing is that as that kinetic energy goes up. 11:49.18 David Um, yeah. 11:59.50 Devin re penetrating better big surprise but but kinetic energy is the number 1 variable capturing the penetration and the size of the wound the wind surface area in our data. So so if you're going to hunt a big animal. You're probably and that you do that for a living. 12:11.47 David Um, yeah. 12:18.60 Devin You're probably going to adapt a heavier weapon kit. 12:20.39 David Sure the figure 6 as well like I just want to commend you on the like the adding the point like the scan photos of the or how I would say this like the spearheads are the at lotttle parts like with the graph is really really helpful and this is like a beautiful figure. 12:32.86 Devin Can. 12:39.12 Devin Thank you. 12:40.17 David And not to mention like you're showing all your work on the side and yeah, it's. 12:41.95 alifeinruins I Love how the bottom one is covered in bison crap like I remember that point because even that was a gut shot I looked at that I was like oh that's the poopy point and you got that published. 12:50.54 Devin You did that this is this is Carlton Sandoo work here. Yeah, you had 2 shots right in a row Carlton. So actually these shots were 3 apart two ninety shot number two ninety and shot number 95 the hit almost. They hit really close together. Um, they certainly didn't hit the same wound channel but they they hit pretty close together and they're 2 different points but they're on the same dart so that was a really good comparison. So yeah. 13:22.89 David Yeah. 13:27.10 alifeinruins Well I'm glad I can help um, but 1 of the more you know but early on table 1 right? where you're looking at the bow hunting requirements. That's a very big part. Can we talked about that with the mettonin all aarin at all. Sorry. 13:37.70 Devin So. 13:41.60 alifeinruins Paper were there just like well you can't hunt elephants with these clovis points because they're firing them off like a £30 bow and bubble blah. You know we talked about that in that episode but you have like the list of like these are the requirements. The kinetic energy and the force and joules that you need to be able to hunt these different classifications at game. And you have the very large game. Um, which is between two hundred twenty seven and nine hundred and ninety Eight Kilograms now um does a mammoth or mastodon fit within I don't know what a kilogram is I speak Merk and I do my weights in. 14:15.59 David Thousand grahams. 14:15.88 alifeinruins Orders a big max so I don't know what a kilogram but click. 14:16.18 Devin Let's see let's say yeah I know let's do conversion real quick. So I know that Fred bar killed a african l a four ton african elephant release that was the estimate with a £75 bow so not a terribly heavy draw bow but he killed it one shot and so let's just see pound to kilogram. 14:49.35 David Um, hey Siri how many grams oh shit. Okay. 14:51.68 Devin Is so that's about eighteen hundred kilograms yeah so interesting. That's outside of the the Kilogram range. Um, but these I can tell you that these ballistics these recommendation recommendations applied to elephants. 15:07.95 alifeinruins Yeah, yeah. 15:09.62 Devin So I'd have to go back and look at Tomka's article as to why he drew the the upper range at Ninety Eight Nine hundred and ninety Eight kilograms but in african countries these these ballistics associated with this very large game category are what they recommend for elephant honey. 15:25.50 alifeinruins Got you because you have in that you do have two heavy darts composite number 13 composite number 16 composite number thirteen is only able to do eighty three joules of energy which is below that recommended 88 threshold but 15:27.50 Devin But the bow and arrow. 15:43.94 Devin Um, yeah, but I stuck it in that that heavy darts category just because it seemed like it belonged there. 15:45.10 alifeinruins The. 15:50.75 alifeinruins Yeah, but but then composite 16 is at 112 which like very well exceeds that limit right? And that's one um, it's like what me and donning got. 15:57.89 Devin Yeah. 16:04.00 alifeinruins Similar values on the heavy dart I Remember that thing that thing sucked to throw. 16:08.79 Devin Well, the 1 use you threw at Donny's house you said you enjoyed um, okay well that there's the one you threw up on the mountain and then there's the one you threw it his house. 16:12.46 alifeinruins It sucked to throw. It was wood to throw but it was weird. 16:25.71 Devin So the 1 you threw at his house. You told me at the time that that you liked it. That's not correct. Yeah, that was the mountain one. Yeah, it wasn't as it wasn't tuned as well. So I approved it. 16:33.74 alifeinruins I think I'm thinking about the mountain one One of those wasn't a fun day to throw that thing. 16:45.13 Devin And that's the 1 you threw at Donny's house so hundred told joules of energy is absolutely the the mean that you were getting down range at about fifteen yards down range at donny'shouse. um 16:53.97 alifeinruins Right. 17:01.14 Devin And then we're getting some higher values of that 12130 Joules so but you me your average was was above the the necessary recommended energy for an arrow to kill an elephant and ah and the the arrow that. Fred Barry used to kill that Forton Elephant had to have been down in like the 60 or 70 jewel range or or lower even so these are just recommendations. 17:27.83 alifeinruins Yeah God show. 17:32.34 David Yeah I remember trying to on the mountaintop trying to shoot the target while also keeping it in range of the sheet you had on the side so you could track it with the slowmo camera but I kept like throwing them throwing them over that and. 17:45.96 Devin Yeah, yeah, you know heavy dart. You were just lobbing over the the backdrop just made it hard to get any kind of good readings I wish I had the radar again. 17:51.90 David Still hitting it sometimes but. 17:51.26 alifeinruins Ah, that's right. 17:58.54 David So my bad but. 18:04.50 Devin I mean because later we got a really sweet radar again, we did ah um for our second bison we crowdsourced it and 1 of the things I wanted to get with the crowdsourcing was a radar again. So we could compare. 18:21.19 Devin Velocity from a really high quality radar again with the high speed camera. So so we were able to do that then subsequent velocity experiments. We use the radar again and it was. It's phenomenal and it works so well. 18:31.95 David Yeah, that's good then well we need to wrap this segment up. But when we come back, We'll talk about the other paper. 18:33.35 alifeinruins Now. 18:41.00 Devin Cold.