Kind: captions
Language: en
Here, archaeologists sift through the
muddy layers of time to find out more
about the risks these early people took
to survive.
>> You know, when people talk about
archaeology,
>> Yes.
>> at the back of a cave digging mud is is
this is the hard stuff.
>> One thing that has been found in a
number of caves on the Northwest Coast
is uh spear points in association with
bear bones. Yeah. And these date as far
back as 13,000 years.
>> Is so is this one of these spear points?
>> This is a fragment of a spear point that
was found in a cave not too far from
here. We have uncovered a bone in the
wall of this unit. And it's uh 20 cm
below the surface. And uh so I'm going
to pull it and we'll see if it moves.
>> All right.
And we don't know what species it is or
what bit of bone it is.
>> Uh there's not enough here. to know for
sure, but it is a pretty big mammal.
>> It's a rib, isn't it?
>> So, that could be a bear rib. It's
probably most likely what it is, cuz
it's quite robust.
>> How amazing.
What age do you think it is?
>> Well, we have some other samples from
above where this bone is, and they're
coming back uh around 14,000 years old.
>> Okay. So, it's old. So, it's could be
the same age or older.
>> Yeah. You know, one of the most
wonderful things about archaeology is
that
sometimes you uncover something that
hasn't seen the light of day in
thousands of years and in this case,
well, maybe 14,000 years.
>> Well, we're interested in where bears
were hunted in the past. And in the
winter when there's there's not as many
resources around and people are feeling
a bit hungry, knowing where there is a
bear den is quite a valuable thing cuz
you can come up there and dispatch the
bear. You'll have a load of meat, fur,
as well as bones.
One theory of how they hunted bears
comes from studies of the native peoples
of this region and North Asia in past
centuries.
>> Essentially, a hunter would go with a a
party to a cave, smoke the bear out of
the cave, and entice that bear to attack
a single hunter. And that hunter would
be armed with a bracing spear and a bear
would come uh to take the hunter up in a
bear hug, which is a common thing that
they do.
>> Yeah.
>> And the idea is a bear would take that
hunter and cr essentially give him a
good crushing.
The hunter at the same time would brace
the spear on the ground and aim it at
the bear's heart. And so essentially the
bear would take the hunter and the spear
into the bear hug thereby spearing
itself through the heart.