Pike Use in Megafauna Hunting and Antipredator Defense: Historical Techniques and Paleolithic Research

This paper presents a comprehensive assessment of megafauna confrontation using pikes, as recorded in historical accounts and ethnographic studies depicting techniques of hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, colonial hunters and others. In contrast to the two other basic spear types, the lance and the javelin, the impalement force of the pike is derived from the mass and speed of the charging or lunging animal. The historical data demonstrate that pike bracing was a common and fundamental technique used by spear-wielding individuals challenging megafauna, including ursids, pantherids, suids, bovids, and mounted equids, that confront humans aggressively and are not disadvantaged. In hunting, pikes were used most often in situations where the hunter influenced the animal’s behavior to draw a charge, leap or lunge. Braced spears (pikes) were also important for defending against predators and cavalry mounts that attacked in these ways. We examine such variables as animal size, trajectory and momentum, weapon rotation on its base, shaft diameter, frequency of cross bars, and point material (wood, osseous, lithic and metal). Variability in pike use is of significance to numerous archaeological and evolutionary topics that require assessment of human confrontation with Pleistocene megafauna, and approaches to archaeological pike identification are considered.