The art of stone ax making
Knowledge of history, including awareness of the consequences of worshipping the idol of progress, should warn mankind against losing the gains of previous generations.
Published: 04:08 PM,Aug 01,2023 | EDITED : 08:08 PM,Aug 01,2023
In any local history museum a visitor will see fragments of weapons and tools of the Stone Age. Most take a quick glance at these objects and pass by. But don't rush. Stop and look closely at this arrowhead, this skinning scraper.
You will be amazed by the quality of the object made by the hands of an ancient man from obsidian or other particularly hard rock. The narrow blade of a knife, once mounted on a wooden base, is something that only a jeweller can do today on a miniature machine. It took students at the University of Exeter 22 months of training to be able to make a stone axe the same as people did 500,000 years ago.
Many such perfect products of ancient stone cutters are exhibited in the Frankincense Museum in Salalah. Most of them came from the vicinity of the ancient city of Ubar in old times collapsed into a huge funnel in the middle of a rocky desert.
The surroundings of this lost settlement are strewn with various stone products, which were made about 7,000 years ago, which indicates the presence of numerous artisans.
Considering that the same stone was used in stone processing, one can imagine how high the craftsman's qualification was, how labour skills were developed, which made it possible to carry out large-scale production of such items as arrowheads.
We can also judge how skilful our distant ancestors were in manual work by the finds in the Alps and the Andes, in Scandinavia, where the bodies of people who died long before the emergence of centres of civilisation were found frozen in ice. Their clothes and shoes, weapons and household items were made using the same stone tools or needles from fish bones that are found during excavations. The high quality and durability of products of ancient hands surprises. In those days, they even shaved with stone razors!
Speaking of shaving. Even 60 years ago, most men had the skill of using straight razors. Before shaving it was “sharpened” on a leather belt and then slowly driven over face without fear of cuts. Today even a multi-blade shaver from Gilette is a danger to many. It would seem that the loss of a skill should not cause regrets, but this is not an isolated example. The manual dexterity of the current generation is an order of magnitude lower than that of its predecessors.
A recent example is the displacement of a manual gearbox by an automatic. The result is not only a significant loss of driving skill, but also atrophy of the calf muscles, leading to leg weakness. The same can be said about the decrease in the adaptive functions of the body as a result of the excessive use of AC.
The intellectual resources of the individual are also drying up. If fathers could easily cope with simple arithmetic calculations, then for sons this is beyond their strength because they are used to relying on a calculator. Soon there will be no drivers left who can navigate the map, most of them are already trusting navigators.
Even more sad is the fact that the habit of communicating with a book is disappearing, and this is a powerful tool for the development of human potential! Even reading large texts becomes unbearable for someone who is used to feeding on Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp messages.
It may be said that all these unfortunate facts are an inevitable consequence of technological progress, that it is as ridiculous to be sad about it as to protest against the advent of the steam engine or the telephone. All right, but look at the alarm caused by artificial intelligence (AI) everywhere appearing over the horizon. Even such a standard-bearer of progress as Elon Musk believes that AI has the potential to destroy civilisation (interview with Fox News political analyst Tucker Carlson on April 13, 2023).
Knowledge of history, including awareness of the consequences of worshipping the idol of progress, should warn mankind against losing the gains of previous generations. It is necessary to accumulate skills and abilities that make a person more powerful and free. Just as in the middle of the 20th century, environmental problems were recognised and acted upon, so the need for the return of the universal personality will inevitably come to the fore.
You will be amazed by the quality of the object made by the hands of an ancient man from obsidian or other particularly hard rock. The narrow blade of a knife, once mounted on a wooden base, is something that only a jeweller can do today on a miniature machine. It took students at the University of Exeter 22 months of training to be able to make a stone axe the same as people did 500,000 years ago.
Many such perfect products of ancient stone cutters are exhibited in the Frankincense Museum in Salalah. Most of them came from the vicinity of the ancient city of Ubar in old times collapsed into a huge funnel in the middle of a rocky desert.
The surroundings of this lost settlement are strewn with various stone products, which were made about 7,000 years ago, which indicates the presence of numerous artisans.
Considering that the same stone was used in stone processing, one can imagine how high the craftsman's qualification was, how labour skills were developed, which made it possible to carry out large-scale production of such items as arrowheads.
We can also judge how skilful our distant ancestors were in manual work by the finds in the Alps and the Andes, in Scandinavia, where the bodies of people who died long before the emergence of centres of civilisation were found frozen in ice. Their clothes and shoes, weapons and household items were made using the same stone tools or needles from fish bones that are found during excavations. The high quality and durability of products of ancient hands surprises. In those days, they even shaved with stone razors!
Speaking of shaving. Even 60 years ago, most men had the skill of using straight razors. Before shaving it was “sharpened” on a leather belt and then slowly driven over face without fear of cuts. Today even a multi-blade shaver from Gilette is a danger to many. It would seem that the loss of a skill should not cause regrets, but this is not an isolated example. The manual dexterity of the current generation is an order of magnitude lower than that of its predecessors.
A recent example is the displacement of a manual gearbox by an automatic. The result is not only a significant loss of driving skill, but also atrophy of the calf muscles, leading to leg weakness. The same can be said about the decrease in the adaptive functions of the body as a result of the excessive use of AC.
The intellectual resources of the individual are also drying up. If fathers could easily cope with simple arithmetic calculations, then for sons this is beyond their strength because they are used to relying on a calculator. Soon there will be no drivers left who can navigate the map, most of them are already trusting navigators.
Even more sad is the fact that the habit of communicating with a book is disappearing, and this is a powerful tool for the development of human potential! Even reading large texts becomes unbearable for someone who is used to feeding on Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp messages.
It may be said that all these unfortunate facts are an inevitable consequence of technological progress, that it is as ridiculous to be sad about it as to protest against the advent of the steam engine or the telephone. All right, but look at the alarm caused by artificial intelligence (AI) everywhere appearing over the horizon. Even such a standard-bearer of progress as Elon Musk believes that AI has the potential to destroy civilisation (interview with Fox News political analyst Tucker Carlson on April 13, 2023).
Knowledge of history, including awareness of the consequences of worshipping the idol of progress, should warn mankind against losing the gains of previous generations. It is necessary to accumulate skills and abilities that make a person more powerful and free. Just as in the middle of the 20th century, environmental problems were recognised and acted upon, so the need for the return of the universal personality will inevitably come to the fore.