AskHistorians

1383 readers

21 users here now

QUESTIONS

Be civil.
Be specific.
Historical topic must be from at least 20 years ago.
Post questions in the title. Elaboration is for the text box.

RESPONSES

Be civil.
Provide comprehensive answers.
Please provide primary and secondary sources upon good faith request. Tertiary sources, like Wikipedia, are not accepted.

askhistorians is a community for academic answers to questions about history. Polls, opinions, bigotry, grammar pedantry, and personal insults will be removed.

Be sure to check out our sister community at: !askscience@lemmy.world

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

Patnou@lemmy.world

PugJesus@piefed.social

Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.ca

Wrufieotnak@feddit.org

-4

How effective were spears back in the day? Kind of seems flimsy with just a metal tip and a long body. Why not just target the the wooden part and it's done. How did they last so long? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to c/askhistorians@lemmy.world

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 1 points 17 hours ago

People don't like stabbing one another so the farther away from the person you're stabbing you can get, the better.

The roman one's were designed to break after you threw them so the enemies couldn't throw them back