Steel chisels cutting wood and bone

[Steelwolf]

Even with your 'Keris' which is often called a Kriss, they are much later than some 800 years ago, which is when that skull is from. I would suggest you look up a copy of Stone's Glossary of arms and armor I would suggest that you do not have the old technology to be able to properly harden and shape a wooden implement, you plain have not been trained in it, the shaping and hardening processes. With those weapons it was not a matter of just taking a piece of wood and making that shape with it. the grain and structure of the wood had, HAD, to match the type of form and shape needed for the weapon.

You are still not getting it though, you are trying to compare stuff from the Modern World to a wound that was caused some 800 years ago plus, when there WERE No Metal Implements in that area, so the wound HAD to be caused by either stone or wood, and since stone in the area is not suitable for toolmaking, the hardened woods are it. And a modern person, unless they have lived the life in the Bush essentially living the way the Old Peoples did, then you have no way of PROPERLY recreating the weapon, all you are doing is making something of the supposed right shape, yet having none of the structural properties that a Real Weapon would have had.

It is like the difference between a cheap Pakistan knife made with recycled countertop vs a Hand Made custom knife by a professional. Also in the use of it, it is the difference between someone who has swung an axe and someone who has made their living that way, there is a HUGE difference in the experience and skills training of combat, and if you have not been so trained, with that weapon, then you are essentially a novice who is trying to get an exact morphology out of similar blades. Making a modern version of an ancient tool, unless you follow all of the old ways of doing it, is just something that Looks like the item, so Of Course the modern version is not going to do so great. It is likely a similar weapon that caused the groove in the skull that healed as the one that never got the chance to heal. So, since there are many ways that the bone can split and flake, so your limited testing is not very good proof, and certainly not proof that would stand scientific scrutiny in a peer reviewed paper.

 

[be unique]

So we can take it that you have never seen boomerang cut bone? Our major problem is density: Iron is 7 tons cu/m, mulga is 1 ton. Hot air will never give the same strength to wood which is made of wood.

"The period during which the keris buda, and its immediate predecessor, came into being was the Early Classical Period (end 7th Century to end 9th Century). This period of Javanese history was heavily influenced by Indian culture and ideas. "

 

[Steelwolf]

If the weapon used would have had more density and been thinner as in an iron or steel weapon, it would have carried the wound into the bone further, as I have pointed out before. A lighter weapon, being used at higher speed, can cause damage similar to steel. Speed of impact makes a huge difference as to the spalling effects on bone and the amount of damage that was done points to a wooden weapon of light weight that was Expertly Used.

The setup that you use is important too, where was the target placed with regard to the attacker. Did you have the test piece at head height and on a semi-flexible mount? Did you then run the same test multiple times trying it from different angles and different types of speed? Do you have any experience at all in the martial arts, actual training wise? And yes, this is very important because Most of us have no clue about the damage that can be done by various weapons types. Without the training it skews your results.

I have gone out and done the field work, and tested each and every new blade design that I built, and there were several. One of my most favored was the Celt-Iberian Falcatta, which looks very similar to the Kukri of the Ghurkas, and yet it was used by the earliest horsemen on the Spanish Steppes, the earliest examples made of bronze. It cut with more devastating effects than a straight blade of similar weight and size, and it had to do with the Exact Shape, not a generalized shape, but a specific one that has a particular mathematic curve behind it: the Bernouli spiral, where it gives the same angle to the cut all the way along the swing, as well as the mass distribution.

The wooden tools were built specific to that piece of wood, and if you cannot see and feel the 'soul' of the wood, if you are not enough of a woodworker to be able to pick out a superior piece of the material, with Just the right shape to it's growth for the tool you need. They did not just go out and grab any old piece of a certain material and expect top results, they were very picky and precise about what got made into what, and for weapons, which were THE TOP of the Tech and status symbol classes, they chose the very best with the exact right features for their weapons.

As a swordmaker, I had a lot of Knifemakers wanting to know the differences between a knife and a sword, because each of them usually try to build a sword, but try to make it a big knife, like how machete's are made. The problem with that is that swords are very different than a knife. Knives are made to cut, in a controlled fashion, they are hardened steel and very hard, tempered back just enough to keep them from being Too brittle, but as you know, steel knives can be snapped off, and that will not work for a sword, let alone the balance and harmonic tuning of the item.

(Talking swords of medieval and rennassance eras, later saber and the Japanese Katana and the Samshir are all slicing weapons and differently built, but have much in common with their European and earlier counterparts) Generally speaking a sword is more of an impact weapon, as most targets are armored to some degree, and so they are not hardened and are thicker than a knife would be. The edge on most swords was actually closer to that of a cold chisel for metal rather than a wood chisel as under impact the thinner edge would chip or break, imperiling the weapon.

The balance and tuning is different, in a knife they are one and the same, and the balance point should be right at the guard of the blade or right under the first finger, the tuning points will be ahead and behind that only a little bit, so it is not as important, but the motion and feel of the blade in hand and how the edge presents itself are of utmost importance behind the hardness and edge keeping ability, in a sword the balance needs to be about 3 inches forward of the guard and there will then be two tuning points, the percussion and repercussion points. The percussion point is the 'sweet spot' in a sword (or baseball/cricket bat) and the placement of the repercussion point is of vital importance, in a single hand weapon it needs to lay directly under the center finger in the middle of the hand, the strongest part of your hand, and line up with the wrist, so that any vibration of the blade is allowed for as it will vibrate to either side of that point and Not be jarred or jangled out of the hand. If you have ever hit something holding onto the end of the bat and gotten a nasty surprise of impact then you will know how important it is to have that impact redirected so as to not shatter your own hand every time you hit something with your sword.

Most knifemakers do not know of this difference in physics behind swords, but know that of knives well. I had been a high end Navy Welder, so I knew my metallurgy and construction techniques. And it is EASY to make something that Looks LIKE a Sword, but does not at all Act like a sword, if it does not have all of the metallurgy and costruction technique along with the exact proper mass distribution in the whole weapon. Do you see what I mean here? It is easy for you to make something that may LOOK like an Aussie Aboriginal Fighting 'rang, a Warrior's Wonna, and yet have it completely fail and may as well be balsa wood because you do not know the specific techniques in making that item.

Knapping Flint should be easy, right? Give it a whirl, first you have to be able to identify the right materials and places to get it, then find the right nodule, then prepare it correctly knocking off the chalk parts and revealing the harder metamorphised core, being able to heat treat the stone so that it is more workable under the hammerstone, and then learning percussive and pressure flaking techniques both...is not the sort of thing that most modern people are going to take the time to sit down and really Learn the full craft to Master Level, and that is what it is going to take for you to have a reasonable representation weapon for your testing, unless you go in with the understanding that you have neither the skill at weaponsmaking of that specific sort, nor do you have the specific martial arts training for that weapon, and ANY sort of weapons training is, by definition, martial arts.

Again, you give the indigines too little credit. You should see some of the industrial accidents that happen with wood, soft wood makes excellent spears, fire-harden the point makes it that much better, and Soft woods are what Europeans and most in Asia were able to use, Australia has some of the very hardest woods in the world, and the damage that can come from even softer wooden weapons can equal or exceed what is seen in that skull. A 1/16 inch radius edge of properly, Expertly Hardened Aussie hardwood wonna, with it's curved edge, is going to do more damage than a straight edge, and the angle of attack and the speed of the attack are going to make all the difference.

You appear to be trying to FORCE an interpretation, over the top of expert advice and testimony, my question now is:

WHY? Why are you pushing this view? Why are you so sure that properly built and wielded wooden implement could not do this when you have been told by an expert on the subject of weapons and swords that your interpretation does Not Fit, that there were no other choices of material except possibly fire hardened bone? The Verbal Historical Record of The People in the area show No Visitors until somewhat later, so you need to come up with something that they would have had, and a steel weapon is obviously not going to be a fit since they did not HAVE that technology, and there was no other source for it there.

 

[Steelwolf]

The person is stating (I read the actual article too) that there were no metal sword blades like that then, so that was not that kind of weapon being used. I think you are twisting the meaning of his statement by using only part of it, the part that agrees with your theory, excluding the bits you do not care for that do not fit Your Theory.

Also, it was 800 years in the actual article, so you have changed the quote.

By the way, a lil bit of my work:

And

Go together, Navigator's Stilletto, Dual Use, Is also a pair of dividers, 15th century.

And I did another 12 plus years of this work aside from the puttering and playing around I did on my own. I laso had people come to me for serious testing, many Computer Games were made with consultation from me about how weapons would work, scale of damage etc. I was good friends with the people who created Warcraft, and all that came after it. So I DO have a bit of real, hard data, and decades of experience to back it up, and yes, I used the swords as they were built to tool quality, not just show.

I used to split wood with my broadswords, kindling with a shortsword. I Really DO Know about what I am talking, and do not need to be insulted, thank you

 

[be unique]

The elder's quote is from doco narration text - 700 years. "A blade" means ...what? If mulga wood sliced bone why did he say "something is wrong" ? He should have said , "Yeah we made blades that zapped a dudes block off".

 

[Steelwolf]

I read the articles too, a few of them, and ok, I am off on the 800 yrs, I had to go back and it was one of the statements talking about that era, However, what Dr Bates was talking about Not Having was Metal Weapons there, at that time, they had no blades Like That. They had their bladed wooden weapons, and fine enough edge on those, the throwing sticks can do severe damage with their sharpened end-grain. You are SEVERELY underestimating those people and their gear.

You are not posting any real proof, and those things you point to, such as modern steel medical chisels, are so far away from the subject that all they have in common is bone.

You conflate what Badger Bates himself states concerning blades, he states No Metal Blades, they did not have those here then.

Note: the researches had Originally thought it was a metal sword that had done the wound due to the Appearance, however, the dating puts it out of reach at the time, as there is no history of people moving into the area at that time, and the Aboriginal Verbal History has been found to be amazingly accurate back at least 26 generations with older stories still being cohesive even if it shows divergence at points, they are clear delineations within the record.

The materials in the South Seas and Australia got the general name of Ironwoods due to them being heavy, even when cured dry, and hard, often used (even today) for hammer (mallet) heads and is a prized material for just that use amongst sculptors.

The Ironwoods were also as hard as the early iron implements, which were brittle, so overbuilt and heavy. Having a weapon made from such materials, and as expertly made as they did, would have produced edges keen enough to do that shallow damage, especially since this was a frontal attack, not one coming down from above, and is possible that it was thrown, with the cutting edge hitting cheekbone and then bouncing upwards and busting out a spall flake upwards from the leading edge and putting a crack through the rest of the skull, all from the impact on the front, rising, not a downwards impact. That is what lead the investigators to determine a thrown object, thus a Boomerang of some sort.

For doing an in depth investigation like this you will need the archeology, the materials science, the weapons science, the Medical Science and the physics behind all of it, along with a solid backing in the martial arts. Otherwise you are just trying to Force a single view instead of going where the science leads you. Find something to prove me wrong. Not innuendo or tangential subjects either.

You have yet to prove that a wooden weapon could Not do that. I just gave you a clear scenario that shows how that piece could have been removed. If I am wrong, prove it.

 

[be unique]

The proof is the detailed discussion in the doco , Cambridge article and NY Times arguing how wood is really steel. If it was so then a pic of such weapons and comment "this was used to cut skulls" would be enough . No discussion.

Same with your long involved guesswork. All the responses were that a British colonial sword , not boomerang, was used . Badger Bates could easily have said ( with his long memory) that it's OK , we always did that stuff.

If you purchase a frozen pig-skull you may be able to prove that wood is steel.

 

[Steelwolf]

You are stating that that wound could have ONLY been formed one way, and that was with weaponry that was not in the area at that time. Badger did NOT say that Boomerang's could not do that, only that there were no steel or iron blades there, that was it, nothing more. He was NOT saying that the native weapons could not do that, and the carbon dating puts it back before METAL swords were Known to them. That Study specifically states that they THOUGHT it was a metal sword from colonial era, then got the radiocarbon dating that put it several hundred years earlier than those swords were there. The way the cut is created does not conform to your hypothesis, it is a spalling fracture from facial, face-on impact and the object hit the cheekbone and edge of the brow ridge and spalled the piece back and up peeling it along the conchoidal breaks lines. Since archeology and radocarbon dating puts it out to the era to be the saber or cutlass, it was NOT a metal blade, and that was the thrust of those articles, where they Proved that it was a boomerang because the injuries predate steel swords in the area.

You are still, as was stated before by Baluncore that you are severely underestimating the ability of those wooden tools.

If you do not understand Ek=MV^2 where a lighter wooden weapon can move faster and can actually impart the same amount of damage as a later era metals could do, it was NOT a metal weapon that caused that damage. Archeological studies state there Were no metal swords then, the Native Badger himself stated no METAL blades, but he did NOT say that there were no wooden weapons that would not do that damage. You are conflating that man's statement badly and mis-representing the whole idea.

 

[fresh_42]

Please stay on topic and avoid ad hominem remarks, if possible even those you may think are justified. Sentences in direct address, i.e. with a you as subject tend to escalate and are not suited for a scientific discourse.

There exist extremely hard woods especially in that part of the world, so called ironwoods. This means the use of metal isn't necessarily indicated as only explanation. I'm not saying this is an example, as I cannot answer the question how indigenous tribes would have manufactured such woods, only that the range of possibilities is wider than either or.

 

[Steelwolf]

The proof in the documentary in the NYTimes specifically states that while they had originally assumed that it was a colonial era weapon, thus steel saber, but that carbon 14 testing proved that the skeleton was closer to 800 years old, some 300 years prior to colonization, which is what led them to realize that this HAD to have been done by earlier weaponry, pre-colonization, pre-metal weaponry in the area, so that the most likely culprit in the damage was the Wonna. The article itself is where I got that information that I have been quoting, from that article, for a while on this thread.

Why you are trying to prove the opposite of the Documentary I do not know.

 

[be unique]

"Dr Michael Westaway
I didn't expect the carbon dates to be anything like that. I thought they were going to be very modern. And the carbon dates suggest no, it's 700 years old. That means that there are weapons being used by people in western New South Wales that are creating signatures that look like, you know, sword wounds.

NARRATION
The radio carbon dates are a surprise for Badger too.

Badger Bates
Our old people back then did not have a blade like that. If that carbon date is 700 years old, there is something wrong somewhere. "

The context is "that look like sword wounds". Bates said it's wrong for his old people.

The absence of British doesn't change science . Westaway and myself did tests showing wood don't cut it. Where are there any facts , tests or science to show wood is steel ? GM, USN and Chinese Steel would be very interested and big dollars for you.

 

[Steelwolf]

I think the mistake is in assuming this wound was a cutting wound from the outside of the skull. The actual damage appears to begin at the front underside of the brow orbital and the pressure is upwards, flaking off the chip of bone and splitting it along the fracture line. That appears to be a bouncing strike and I could SHOW you how to do a proper setup and do the runs myself to prove the theory and possibility for you. What it obviously is not is a modern saber wound since there were no foreigners there at the time, and their science had not produced metal swords.

Some basic physics, the right setup and manner of testing would prove it to you. The degree of damage to the cheekbone is telling. Being disabled I could use big dinero, but I am afraid you are barking up the wrong tree and trying to prove the OPPOSITE of what is in those studies you posted.

Even if you are working with One researcher, they may not have any clue concerning the actual martial arts involved.

I DO understand what you are tryig to show, and trying to prove, but so far have not shown any semblance of understanding what I and others have been saying. But all I see is someone trying to prove the opposite of what was determined in the Documentary Study. WHY?

Since you seem to be a paying researcher who is pushing this study this way, cover my travel and fees and materials etc, and I will SHOW you the proof, first hand.

 

[be unique]

If you said "Pre-Columbus Amerindians didn't have horses so they must have ridden on buffalo" I would disagree. If you say "there were no steel swords so wood is steel" I would disagree. I understand your guesses but where are the facts? Pig head is cheap , you can cleave , slice , splinter and flake it and cook with 3 veg.

Do you mean that Badger Bates was saying " Our people didn't have a blade like that , they had a wooden blade like that". Nowhere does the article quote him about wood cutting bone , which would cancel all the contrived guesses.
We're going in circles but the only science in the article is that an African Samburu sword gives the closest trauma. No-one even hints at wooden blades being connected with Australian skeletons. Westaway says Kaakutja is completely different from any Aboriginal trauma known.

 

[Steelwolf]

I think you and Westaway are reading that wound wrong because it came from the front in-side and up, and it split off that piece of skull, fractured it upwards and peeled it back, which is why those lines on the edges are so, and the fracturing of the skull tore it further in two.

I am disagreeing with the way the wound was made, the direction of attack etc. If you are trying to swing down onto the skull from above, then you have the attack wrong mode as by the direction of the wound morphology. Consider a sharp edged boomerang entering the eye socket by bouncing off the cheekbone upwards and spalling off the flake of bone and leaving that nasty crack in the skull. What it obviously is Not is a horizontal slice of any kind. In fact, it is closer in how it was formed to back-flaking on a flint piece, it is a percussion flake upwards from the inside of the orbital on the brow ridge, taking that triangular shaped piece out. And, by experimentation, you will find that it breaks and comes off in that pattern a whole lot more regularly than any other method that you have tried.

 

[Steelwolf]

Unhardened (untreated) sidegrain Buloke has a hardness similar to pure aluminum, so it would be able to take an 'edge' but would not hold it long, but a fine, 1/16th to 1/32nd inch radius edge, with that hard of a material, would easily do the damage shown. Also, since that is a fracture, not a slice, it would not need the same narrow profile as a steel sword. The weapon could have had a very nearly round edge and still would have splintered the flake upwards, but would not likely have left that much of a break in the skull as well, so I would argue for a sharper wooden boomerang hitting with end grain, likely with part of a crotch as the cross graining makes it even tougher and more durable, and can allow for a harder treatment when fire hardened. The wood is also very very dense, much denser than most wood elsewhere in the world, harder than many woods used for weapons.

I just think the morphology of the wound has been read wrong and so the testing has been mis-directed.

Also, the abstract for the article "The Death of Kaakutja:a case of peri-mortem weapon trauma in an Aboriginal man from north-northwestern New South Wales, Australia" happens to state clearly and plainly: "Analysis indicates that the wooden weapons known as ‘Lil-lils’ and the fighting boomerangs (‘Wonna’) both have blades that could fit within the dimensions of the major trauma and are capable of having caused the fatal wounds."

 

[Steelwolf]

There are guesses, and then there is educated analysis backed by decades of experience. One you can hear in a tavern, the other you hear in universities. I Have those decades of actual experience thus I put forth my analysis as it is.

 

[fresh_42]

This thread seems to have reached a dead end where all arguments have been exchanged and progress cannot be detected anymore.

I observed (and removed) repeatedly remarks on pig heads, presumably as a pop science comparison used on tv shows like Myth Busters to decide the case. I'm afraid this lacks any scientific standards and cannot count as an argument for which side ever.

Thread closed.