For proof we were visited by aliens, behold the boomerang.
Several years ago I was practicing primitive skills and found a tossed stick had a much better chance of incapacitating a bunny rabbit than a thrown rock. A stick can be spun so there is, for half it's length, a strike zone where both the speed of the stick and the speed of the spin combine to deliver a dibilitating blow. Now imagine you are a hungry bushman and want to brain that tasty looking wallaby. You find a flat bent stick sitting on the ground and you use it, it does not go straight, you miss by a mile, you would think what a useless stick and you would immediatly look for a more traditional stick so you end up with supper. The boomerang needs to be designed correctly and your toss needs to be correct for the thing to work. Primitive man would have no use for an almost working model for which he could fine tune. It is impossible for a hunter to develop the boomerang, he would rely on tried and proven methods to fill the supper pot, not fiddle around and go hungry. So Aliens it is.
I have another theory on how to develop a boomerang but I want to toss this up and see how it come back.
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I've replied with this before: I think we underestimate the ingenuity of ancient peoples. They are after all modern humans still.
Do you think that maybe the boomerang was developed over decades? And not only by the experience of one hunter but maybe from the experiences of several hunters? Maybe by several tribes of hunters?
With your line of thinking, do you think that our computers were also developed from alien technology - because, you know, we would have been too busy hunting and gathering?
SamKerry
Level 7
Mar 18, 2018
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Development over time seems impossible because the boomerang is completely useless until it comes back, why put forth the effort to improve a completely useless thing.
@Tominator I looked it up. The boomerang can be traced all the way back to 20000 years ago. Consider that by then, we already had clay pottery. Therefore, we already have fire and have already learned that heating up soft mud in very hot temperatures actually made them tougher. Which means we already knew how to build kilns.
So which is more likely:
( a ) the boomerang was developed from someone somewhere a very long time ago noticing that a thrown curved stick was more accurate than a thrown straight stick.
OR
( b ) the boomerang was a gift from ancient aliens.
EDIT: I'm simply challenging your ideas here, by the way. If you do believe that boomerangs were gifts from aliens, that would be your opinion. And that's fine by me.
@SamKerry No it was just an amusing thought, something to get the juices flowing. I guess I'll go on with my theory on why one would develop and improve a stick that does not go in the direction you threw it. My brother and I spent our entire youth throwing objects at each other. We eventually upgraded to killer slingshots and closed pine cones. A solid hit produced a pretty good tuberculous test. Anyway my brother noticed he could curve a pine cone, and further with a little practice he could hook it around the corner of a building. Imagine how difficult it is to dodge a pine cone turning the corner at about 70 mph. So I proposed that a stick that did not go straight would be considered useless for hunting, but a stick with a bit of a curve can be a very amusing thing for which to bean your brother. All of the sudden there is incentive to incrementally improve the boomerang which is what is needed to create a boomerang.
Or we were visited by aliens.
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