Anthropology major Ava Lowery uses an atlatl—a spearthrower—and a dart to practice traditional hunting techniques. Photo credit: Dr. Brooke Persons.
About 70 people stepped tens of thousands of years into the past, learning to hunt with darts chunked by spears, make tools from stone and join a badminton-like game played by an ancient Peruvian civilization.
Taking place at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Chamberlain Field on Saturday, Nov. 4, the fifth annual Paleo Skills Workshop was organized by Assistant Professor Brooke Persons, director of the Jeffrey L. Brown Institute of Archaeology at UTC. The event was arranged by faculty and interns from the anthropology program—along with community volunteers—and was open to anyone interested in participating.
Among the skills practiced at the workshop were:
- Using an atlatl, or spearthrower, and dart, a hunting technology from about 20,000 years ago.
- Making projectile points and other forms of stone tools, a technique known as “knapping.”
- Using wooden slings to try to hit a target with a rock.
- Listening to music played on handmade flutes.
- Preparing Paleolithic meals by grinding corn on a metate, a type of grinding stone.
As part of the day’s festivities, the workshop hosted Gaylon Nelson, a traditional musician and flutist who performed with retired UTC Professor Lyn Miles.
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Jeffrey L. Brown Institute of Archaeology
UC Foundation Associate Professor Morgan Smith demonstrates flint-knapping techniques to students to make projectile points and other stone tools. Photo credit: Dr. Brooke Persons.
Anthropology major Rachel Watts won the Moche Badminton Toss, a game played within the prehistoric Moche culture of South America. The game is a type of target practice in which participants launch darts using atlatls at a feathered shuttlecock as it unravels from a thrown dart. In the five years of doing the Moche toss at the workshop, Watts was the first student to hit the target and win the Moche toss. Photo credit: Dr. Brooke Persons.
Students line up to practice using a woven sling to fling a woven ball, aiming for cardboard cutouts as targets. Traditional weaponry existed throughout global prehistory, across continents and a range of cultures. Photo credit: Dr. Andy Workinger.
To grind corn, participants use a metate, a grinding stone common among agricultural societies in the Americas. Photo credit: Rose Lundberg.
Chase Heistand, an anthropology intern, teaches another student how to correctly aim the dart thrown by an atlatl—a spearthrower. Photo credit: Dr. Brooke Persons.
Traditional musician Gaylon Nelson, a visiting artist from Atlanta, offered musical stylings by playing traditional handmade flutes—accompanied by UTC Professor Emeritus Lyn Miles. Photo credit: Rose Lundberg.
