I saw a very interesting segment of a show on the Discovery Channel on
Saturday night.  Sorry, I didn't catch the name of the show, but it was
on anthropological forensics.  They were talking about looking at bones
to determine how old injuries were, and how they had solved recent
crimes with the methodology.  Anyway, the last segment was on some
researchers studying Neanderthal bones.  They had found some skeletons
that had an amazing amount of fractures that had healed before the time
of death.  On the ones they studied, most of the fractures were in the
upper body.  The researchers were trying to figure out what would cause
this pattern of injuries, so they compared them to present day rodeo
cowboys and rodeo clowns who also sustain mostly upper body injuries
from getting thrown around by the large bulls and horses.  The
researchers went further and tried to see how hunting practices of
Neanderthal man would cause these type of injuries.  The anthropologist
made some spear points and practiced throwing the spears at targets.  He
found that he would never hit the targets (covered with animal hide)
hard enough to penetrate the skin, much less deal a killing blow.  So,
he tried lunging with the spear and holding onto the spear to give a
much more forceful blow.  He theorized that the Neanderthals would
probably have gotten close to their prey and used brute strength to
drive the spear in.  They then further theorized that this form of
hunting would necessitate group cooperation ( and language to plan
hunts), as the wounded animal would need distraction by Neanderthal
"rodeo clowns" who may also be injured.  They also thought that a stable
society was probably needed to take care of the wounded hunters while
they healed.

Needless to say, it was a very interesting piece.  They didn't discuss
use of the atlatl, or they fact that their diet probably allowed them to
heal fast.  If any of you have come across a written version of this
study (Ray??), let me know.  It was fascinating.  I'll try to catch a
re-run of this show and get the name of the show and more specifics--
Discovery generally repeats many of these types of shows.

Happy Holidays,

Julie Jarvis