heating hooks

[NeolithicMan]

I was watching a special last night on the oldest mummies found to date. part of it talked about cactus spine fishing hooks. it seemed IMHO that they heated them and bent the spines into hook shapes... I had a moment of DUUUH! I made fishing hooks from hawthorn tree thorns I cut, wrapped, an glued with pine pitch and caught a small fish, ruining the hook. made a few more from wild rose thorns either leaving them on the stem and tying off the top or by reatatching the thorns to a carved stick. seems to be a lot of trouble for a one time use kind of thin I thought. Seeing those cactus spine hooks It clicked, why not just heat a bunch of thorn or spines up, bend them around something round and your done... have to trying with some hawthorn thorns but if anyone could spare a few cactus spine of varrying sizes I would love to test this out!

On a side note, anyone else make fishing hooks? made two out of shells and one out of bone and one out of antler.

[lostarrow]

 There was a BBC special "Ancient history of Britain" ,I believe. They do some experimental Archeology throughout the show. One section ,the set some drop lines  with hawthorn hooks and catch a few fish when the tide goes out. I think they were on the Thames in or near London. I'll see if I can find a link. It was a quick , simple set up.

[Mike_H]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuZiJEJp7HSjBiz8CxqfGxY5GRkWqhbRo. It's either the first or second episode, lostarrow.

[lostarrow]

That's what I thought ,but I couldn't find the bit with the fishing again.
  AHHHH! found it! It was Ray Mears . Very first part of the video. This just goes to show how simple yet clever ,(Genius some might say ) our ancestors were. They would likely look at us like we were idiots for the basic thinking skills we've lost. That's why I think sites like this are so great! The shared knowledge  is amazing!https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=waLFiNmWmx0

[bubbles]

I've been going back through the whole ray mears catalog over the last week, so much good stuff without a lot of the hyped up sensationalism of a lot of other survival shows. I've watched that particular episode many times. Aboriginal Britain, extreme survival season 2 I think? In one of them they make the all heartwood yew bow that was found.

[Mike_H]

That was Aboriginal Britain episode of Ray Mears' Bushcraft.  It was a replica of the Mear Heath bow.