{"id":2659,"date":"2021-10-21T19:15:40","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T23:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/history\/?p=2659"},"modified":"2025-05-26T11:18:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T15:18:41","slug":"students-take-a-trip-to-the-paleolithic-past-in-utc-historys-paleo-workshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/history\/2021\/10\/21\/students-take-a-trip-to-the-paleolithic-past-in-utc-historys-paleo-workshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Take a Trip to the Paleolithic Past in UTC History’s Paleo Workshop"},"content":{"rendered":"

***<\/span><\/p>\n

Students Take a Trip to the Paleolithic Past in UTC History’s Paleo Workshop<\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

The UTC Department of History, in collaboration with the Department of Social, Cultural, and Justice Studies and the UTC College of Arts and Sciences, held a Paleo Skills Workshop<\/a> on October 16.<\/span><\/p>\n

Listen to an interview about the workshop on WUTC’s Scenic Roots here<\/a><\/strong>, featuring Dr. Devin Pettigrew, Dr. Carey McCormack<\/a>, and Dr. Brooke Persons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read the UTC News Release<\/strong> about the workshop here<\/a> and below<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Check out the images<\/strong> from the workshop\u00a0on our social media pages — Facebook<\/a><\/strong>, Twitter<\/a><\/strong>, and Instagram<\/a><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

This story was written by Chuck Wasserstrom and originally appeared as a UTC News Release.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"UTC
UTC student Abbey Fowler tests her atlatl skills. The atlatl is a spear-like weapon used by the Aztecs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a typical Saturday afternoon on Chamberlain Field, with University of Tennessee at Chattanooga students tossing around the old atlatl and using fire bow kits to try to generate fire.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, of course, observing flint knapping in action.<\/span><\/p>\n

A typical day, indeed\u201415,000 years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

On a recent fall afternoon, atlatls, fire bow kits and flint knapping were on display when UTC Department of History Lecturer Carey McCormack and Brooke Persons, an anthropologist and director of the Jeffrey L. Brown Institute of Archeology in the Department of Social, Cultural and Justice Studies, teamed up to host a Paleolithic skills learning workshop for students.<\/span><\/p>\n

The hands-on activity, which had nearly 100 student participants and faculty volunteers, allowed students to experiment with archaic weaponry and tools to better understand the evolution of human technology around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCarey, the historian, sees the historic records side of the picture,\u201d Persons said. \u201cIn anthropology, we see the other side of it from the archeological record.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cArcheologists are good at studying material culture and doing experimental archeology, which is learning by doing and trying. It\u2019s a very different side of research, something that students don\u2019t get to see a lot of. This is a different type of hands-on experiential learning that gets students engaged and brings it all to life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While the Paleo-skills workshop is relatively new to UTC, it\u2019s not to McCormack; she has been overseeing similar demonstrations for more than 10 years in other locations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEverything went even better than planned because we had faculty volunteers on all the stations,\u201d McCormack said. \u201cThe event teaches students all kinds of things, such as the ingenuity of early humans and what turned us into apex predators.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t a lot of lecturing, other than an archery range safety talk, McCormick said, \u201cso that there are no accidents. Everyone agrees not to stab each other with anything; they just go from station to station and experiment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There were instructional stations featuring slings and the atlatl. Students were shown how to use the atlatl, a tool that resembles a spear, by throwing it at targets.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fire bow kits helped students try to create fire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a really long time to actually make a fire,\u201d McCormack said, \u201cbut if they can at least get it to smoke, it gives them a great sense of accomplishment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A flint-knapping station demonstrated the production of traditional stone tools.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever you think about arrowheads or projectile points or the materials that people would have historically put on the end of a spear in some way, flint knapping is the technology that creates that,\u201d Persons explained.<\/span><\/p>\n

The process takes a raw stone and chips away at it until it becomes a tool \u201cthat can then be used for cutting or for whatever purpose,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The final hour of the workshop was dedicated to the Moche toss, a game based on the a Peruvian civilization that flourished between 100 to 700 AD.\u00a0Similar to the game of badminton, it uses a type of shuttlecock that is thrown upwards.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are images of them on old ceramics using the atlatl to snatch shuttlecocks out of the air,\u201d McCormack said. \u201cWe have to try to use our atlatl darts to snatch it out of the air.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

McCormack said her husband, artist Chris Henry, makes the tools and even created Paleolithic weapons for television, movies and museums when they lived in California.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of History Channel shows bought his stuff,\u201d she said, \u201cand there is a museum in Nevada that bought some replications. There are also people in Texas that have bought his atlatls and darts as functional tools for hunting wild boar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UTC Department of History, in collaboration with the Department of Social, Cultural, and Justice Studies and the UTC College of Arts and Sciences, held a Paleo Skills Workshop on October 16. Listen to an interview about the workshop on WUTC’s Scenic Roots, read the UTC News Release, and check out the images from the workshop.<\/p>\n

Continue Reading <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":800,"featured_media":2661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5],"class_list":{"0":"post-2659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-events","8":"tag-events","9":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nStudents Take a Trip to the Paleolithic Past in UTC History's Paleo Workshop - History Archive: Jul 2007 - Oct 2025<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/history\/2021\/10\/21\/students-take-a-trip-to-the-paleolithic-past-in-utc-historys-paleo-workshop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Students Take a Trip to the Paleolithic Past in UTC History's Paleo Workshop - History Archive: Jul 2007 - Oct 2025\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The UTC Department of History, in collaboration with the Department of Social, Cultural, and Justice Studies and the UTC College of Arts and Sciences, held a Paleo Skills Workshop on October 16. 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