wooden steel

[arkleogist]

This archaeology became engineering then anthropology. An Australian skull with sword-cut is dated to late 1200s. This forum won't allow the links but if you search these quotes the link is found:

".injuries on Toorale Man appear similar to those on gladiators in Imperial Rome."


"Of the weapons tested, the frontal wound observed in Kaakutja most closely resembles that produced by an African 'Samburu' sword. "

Neither report has any facts about wood slicing bone. The only analysis is that a sword was used.There was a reason for the Bronze age and Iron age - wood is not so good for weapons. Do you agree that the reasoning for wood is incorrect?

 

[spruithean]

Interesting, I watched a documentary about this Toorale man. Quite a confusing case with the carbon dating not lining up with the suspected timeframe estimates. Definitely is worth some research!

 

[arkleogist]

Our butcher researched it and said wood doesn't cut bone. The article author tested a sharp mulga-wood boomerang on pigskull and failed, as did my test on pigskull and on Synbone forensic skull at 53kmh by radar gun. Forensic and surgery lecturers say wood can't slice cortical plate this way. In the doco the elder says "our people didn't have a blade like that".

Science follows laws and not wishful thinking. Mulga wood is very dense and hard but has an end-grain compression limit of about 40-70 megapascals pressure. Its perpendicular limit is about 8-14 MPa , the side-grain cutting edge. Skull-bone has compression limit of about 23-70 MPa . Heat-hardening makes the surface hard but the wood is more brittle and weak by about 30%. The deformed wood could crack the bone with random damage like a blunt instrument but not slice cleanly as in Toorale skull. In surgery , a chisel thicker than 2mm causes such unintended cracking and a 2mm thick wood-blade is unlikely for battle. My 10mm thick piece of mulga snapped after striking the pigskull 6 times. Wood is not steel.

 

[spruithean]

Our butcher researched it and said wood doesn't cut bone. The article author tested a sharp mulga-wood boomerang on pigskull and failed, as did my test on pigskull and on Synbone forensic skull at 53kmh by radar gun. Forensic and surgery lecturers say wood can't slice cortical plate this way. In the doco the elder says "our people didn't have a blade like that".

Science follows laws and not wishful thinking. Mulga wood is very dense and hard but has an end-grain compression limit of about 40-70 megapascals pressure. Its perpendicular limit is about 8-14 MPa , the side-grain cutting edge. Skull-bone has compression limit of about 23-70 MPa . Heat-hardening makes the surface hard but the wood is more brittle and weak by about 30%. The deformed wood could crack the bone with random damage like a blunt instrument but not slice cleanly as in Toorale skull. In surgery , a chisel thicker than 2mm causes such unintended cracking and a 2mm thick wood-blade is unlikely for battle. My 10mm thick piece of mulga snapped after striking the pigskull 6 times. Wood is not steel.

I saw in the documentary of Toorale man that they carobon dated his remains, and they also tried to do some dating on the sediment/soil in his original grave. Did they ever return a result?

 

[arkleogist]

Yes several items were dated , a tooth and toe-bone and various external items.
The forum won't allow a link :
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL 2 Radiocarbon dating Two samples taken from the skeletal remains were extracted for radiocarbon dating, ametatarsal from the left foot and one incisor. In addition, a yabby gastrolith ( cray-fish) extracted from the preserved stomach contents and a leaf compressed against the skull, and thought to possibly represent foliage incorporated in the original burial ceremony, were also dated.
...All dates in this paper have been calibrated against SHCal13 (Hogg et al. 2013) or Bomb 13 SH1_2 (Hua et al. 2013) in OxCal v.4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2009). The metatarsal was dated three times. The first collagen extract was run twice (SANU-40414 and SANU40505) and then a second collagen extraction was done to check for contamination(SANU-40822). Collagen extracted from the tooth was dated once. All four results are statistically identical (χ2-test: df=3, T=0.9 (5% 7.8)), yielding a date of AD 1260–1280 (95.4% confidence). The yabby gastrolith yielded a date a little later than the bone, of AD 1440–1615 (95.4% confidence)..
Optical datingThe samples were processed to isolate pure extracts of 180–212µm light-safe quartzgrains. Sample processing followed standard procedures (e.g. Aitken 1998) and single-grain equivalent dose (De) values were determined using the modified single aliquot-regenerative dose (SAR) protocol of Olley et al. (2004), in combination withthe acceptance/rejection criteria provided in Pietsch (2009).The age modelling approach and estimates of dose rates followed standardprocedures (Mejdahl 1979; Murray et al. 1987; Galbraith & Laslett 1993; Prescott &Hutton 1994; Galbraith et al. 1999; Roberts et al. 2000; Stokes et al. 2003) andproduced a dose rate for the pit side sample estimated at 1.75±0.13Gy/ka. The single grain De estimates for two samples are displayed in radial plots in Figure S1. Bothsamples are over-dispersed and in each case more than one dose population is evident.This is indicative of partial or heterogeneous bleaching; consequently, we have used the lowest dose population of grains to determine both the deposition age and the timing of the burial (see Olley et al. 2004). The lowest dose population in the sample collected from the side of the excavation pit has a De of 1.86±0.10Gy, which gives a deposition date of between AD 835 and 1055. The lowest dose population in the sample collected from inside the skull has a De of 1.05±0.18Gy applying the same dose rate, giving a minimum age of burial of between AD 1305 and 1525.