the ancient Chinese had a pump action cross bow, if rubber is on the table you can have a spear launcher similar to a harpoon gun, boomerangs should make a comeback. with some clever explanation of a rubber bag being pressurized or a hand pump on a cart (if they have one) I don't see an issue with a greek fire flamethrower or even Molotov cocktails!!! small clay bots filled with acid would be a nice splash damage weapon. You also have bullwhips, garrote wires, and the good old club
As @Homer Potvin said, pottery and skewers can work well, as can simply wrapping in big leaves, like I think banana leaves. The Moroccans do a thing where they build a big clay oven, get a good fire going to the point of coals, then put the meat inside and seal the whole thing shut for a few hours. The coals starve themselves of oxygen pretty quickly but clay is a good insulator so the whole internal chamber stays hot enough to cook the meat (like, a whole lamb or something). Then the oven is broken open (it's a single use item) and dinner is served. As for the original question, the Aztecs made swords of wood with either obsidian or shell flakes fixed to the edges. Obsidian is sharp as hell. The weapon wouldn't make a clean slice, more of a jagged gash, but I don't think that's really a consolation prize for our victim: Here's the same thing with some sort of teeth: Spears and arrows can be tipped with antler points from various ungulates. IIRC, antler-tipped arrows are historically a technological improvement on stone arrowheads, but I could be wrong. It's important not to underestimate pre-literate and pre-metallic cultures. The Aztecs and Mayans had obsidian-knapping skills that have been lost to modern technology. I can't find the image, but years ago I saw a thing on one of the two cultures where they'd found a decorative ceremonial knife that was practically a latticework of obsidian. Of course, the longer your people have been without metal, the better their stone tools are going to get. Take the metal out of a modern first-world country and the population probably wouldn't know how to throw a rock at a rabbit successfully. Ooh, ooh, slings! In some areas in the modern Middle East I've seen young men who were remarkably skilled with this ancient weapon. Of course, they weren't shooting pebbles at rabbits, but that's a geopolitical issue; the fact is that the skills are still there. I'd want a big open field with no passersby or windows before I started learning to use one ETA: Here's a guy on youtube with a short explanation of how to use one and a demonstration. As always, I found him through search, no affiliation, endorsement, or criticism of whatever else he's into, just an easy to understand vid:
Here are some more relevant vids: And as for that jawbone of an ass? (only the first 15 minutes are relevant to making the weapon, the rest is decorative)
It's one of those "must read" books which you need to read so that you can even try to avoid being fooled all the time - or just a fool. - Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs, and Steel - Nassim Taleb: everything. - Sun Tzu: The Art of War - George Orwell: Animal Farm - Judith Rich Harris: The Nurture Assumption - Alexander Solzenitsyn: Gulag Archipelago - The Bible - Dryden & Vos: The New Learning Revolution - Susan Blackmore: The Meme Machine - Yuri Bezmenov videos about subversive Soviet hybrid war. (Very actual again. Happens all the time. Understanding and knowing this helps you understand this day polarisation.) About stone age or non-metal weapons... You can't think only weapons. You must thing the need to them and the environment & culture. Think about... - Northern sami & inuite people hunting & hearding & fishing. - Rainforest folks. - African savanna tribes. - Lowland covered with grass, horses, bows, nomad tribes. - Northern fenno-ugrian tribes with their rowing boats and skies, fishing with nets, hunting bear, moose, eating mushrooms and berries... - Neanderthals, Denisovans... Dogs, cats, cows, sheep, fish, clay, trees... everything matters because everything is your raw material and food and cloths.
Clay, leather, wood, stone.... You can even boil water in a leather bag if you need to. Sauna would be a good thing to have in primitive environment. Clean. Antibacterial. You can dry or smoke large pieces of meat there. Savusauna (smoke sauna) would be excellent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_sauna It's like having a really big oven-smoker-dryer-whatever. Finns did have a custom to cover their meat/fish/whatever with rye dough before cooking it in an oven. That way you had a rye bread and fish and grease or what ever and it lasted longer without getting spoiled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalakukko https://www.desidakaar.com/kalakukko-how-to-make-finnish-kalakukko-recipe/ https://wiki.aineetonkulttuuriperinto.fi/wiki/Kalakukko_tradition Breads were baked rarely. Some of them were with holes in the middle. You had wooden poles ("orsi") where you kept your breads. They dried there. After that they lasted for weeks or months without mould or rotting. And your cat took care that there were not mice or other rodents. Cats were important because of that. And your dog warned you about anyone strange coming near your location.
Is anybody else getting very—um, thread-appropriate advertising on this thread? Booties abound up in that right hand corner.
Booties? As in asses? None here, but a few years ago there was a mail-order-bride-esque thing going around. However, on the family genealogy thread, I've been seeing ads for a genealogy service lately.
Here we go: Mayan "eccentric flints". Not weapons but examples of what a "stone age" culture can do with ages of practice playing with stones:
Dude, that is INSANE!!! Note, no longer getting bootie-fied ads. Happened several times in a row visiting this thread though.
Here are the lattice-like ones I remembered. Those are three separate pieces found in the same temple.
Nothing says "I think my weapon should be a detriment to the user, like putting all kinds of spikes/blades on the handle as well."
I caution care when saying that "all metals in the world have been taken away", because sodium and potassium are metals, and we kind need those to live.
Knapped stones were amongst the first tools used by man as well as weapons. It involves striking two rocks against each other, working one of them down into an incredibly sharp, fine edge, there are plenty of Aztec remnants out there that have these! Apart from that, I presume that rudimentary maces would be made out of sufficiently sized rocks fixed to strong handles of wood
