A spear is a polearm consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastened to the shaft, such as bone, flint, obsidian, copper, bronze, iron, or steel. The most common design for hunting and/or warfare, since modern times has incorporated a metal spearhead shaped like a triangle, diamond, or leaf. The heads of fishing spears usually feature multiple sharp points, with or without barbs.
Spears can be divided into two broad categories: those designed for thrusting as a melee weapon (including weapons such as lances and pikes) and those designed for throwing as a ranged weapon (usually referred to as javelins). Larger spears were often held in end-braced position to impale charging cavalry, and in hunting bears, big cats and other animals that charge or lunge toward the hunter.
Spears have been used by humans for at least 400,000 years as weapons for hunting and/or fishing and for warfare. Along with the club, knife, and axe, it is one of the earliest and most widespread tools ever developed by early humans. As a weapon, it may be wielded with either one or two hands.The Handbook Of The SAS And Elite Forces. How The Professionals Fight And Win. Edited by Jon E. Lewis. p.502-Tactics And Techniques, Survival. Robinson Publishing Ltd 1997. ISBN 1-85487-675-9 It was used in virtually every conflict up until the modern era, where even to this day, it lives on in the form of a bayonet fixed onto the muzzle of a long gun.Weir, William. 50 Weapons That Changed Warfare. The Career Press, 2005, p 12.
Early humans progressively invented tools and techniques for trapping animals. The earliest spears were crafted from wood, with tips toughened by burning. By 15,000 BC, hunters employed wooden and bone spear-launchers to enhance force and distance. These devices were frequently adorned with carvings of creatures.
Etymology The word spear comes from the Old English spere, from the Proto-Germanic speri, from a Proto-Indo-European root *sper- "spear, pole".
Origins Spear manufacture and use is not confined to humans. It is also practiced by the western chimpanzee. Chimpanzees near Kédougou, Senegal have been observed to create spears by breaking straight limbs off trees, stripping them of their bark and side branches, and sharpening one end with their teeth. They then used the weapons to hunt galagos sleeping in hollows.
Prehistory
The Clacton Spear found in England and the Schöningen spears found in present-day Germany document that fully wooden spears have been used for hunting since at least 400,000 years ago, likely for horses in the case of Schöningen. The 120,000 year old Lehringen spear from Germany made by Neanderthals is associated with the butchered skeleton of a large straight-tusked elephant which it was presumably used to kill. A 2012 study from the site of Kathu Pan in South Africa suggests that hominids, possibly Homo heidelbergensis, may have developed the technology of hafted stone-tipped spears in Africa about 500,000 years ago.Monte Morin, "Stone-tipped spear may have much earlier origin", Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2012J. Wilkins et al. "Evidence for early hafted hunting technology". Science, Vol. 338, Nov. 16, 2012, p. 942. doi:10.1126/science.1227608. Wood does not preserve well, however, and Craig Stanford, a primatologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Southern California, has suggested that the discovery of spear use by chimpanzees means that early humans may have used wooden spears before this.Rick Weiss, "Chimps Observed Making Their Own Weapons", The Washington Post, February 22, 2007
From circa 200,000 BC onwards, Middle Paleolithic humans began to make complex stone blades with flaked edges which were used as spear heads. These stone heads could be fixed to the spear shaft by gum or resin or by bindings made of animal sinew, leather strips or vegetable matter. During this period, a clear difference remained between spears designed to be thrown and those designed to be used in hand-to-hand combat. By the Magdalenian period (c. 15,000–9500 BC), spear-throwers similar to the later atlatl were in use.
Military
Europe Classical antiquity Ancient Greeks
The spear is the main weapon of the warriors of Homer's Iliad. The use of both a single thrusting spear and two throwing spears are mentioned. It has been suggested that two styles of combat are being described; an early style, with thrusting spears, dating to the Mycenaean period in which the Iliad is set, and, anachronistically, a later style, with throwing spears, from Homer's own Archaic period.
In the 7th century BC, the Greeks evolved a new close-order infantry formation, the phalanx. The key to this formation was the hoplite, who was equipped with a large, circular, bronze-faced shield (aspis) and a spear with an iron head and bronze butt-spike (doru).Hanson (1999), p. 59 The hoplite phalanx dominated warfare among the Greek City States from the 7th into the 4th century BC.
The 4th century saw major changes. One was the greater use of peltasts, light infantry armed with spear and javelins.Hanson (1999), pp.147–8 The other was the development of the sarissa, a two-handed pike in length, by the Macedonians under Phillip of Macedon and Alexander the Great.Hanson (1999), pp149-150 The pike phalanx, supported by peltasts and cavalry, became the dominant mode of warfare among the Greeks from the late 4th century onwardHunt, Peter. The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare: Volume 1, Greece, The Hellenistic World and the Rise of Rome. Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 108 until Greek military systems were supplanted by the Roman legions.
Ancient Romans
In the pre-Marian Roman armies, the first two lines of battle, the hastati and principes, often fought with a sword called a gladius and pila, heavy javelins that were specifically designed to be thrown at an enemy to pierce and foul a target's shield. Originally, the principes were armed with a thrusting spear called a hasta, but these gradually fell out of use, eventually being replaced by the gladius. The third line, the triarii, continued to use the hasta.
From the late 2nd century BC, all legionaries were equipped with the pilum. The pilum continued to be the standard legionary spear until the end of the 2nd century AD. Auxilia, however, were equipped with a simple hasta and, perhaps, javelins or darts. During the 3rd century AD, although the pilum continued to be used, legionaries usually were equipped with other forms of throwing and thrusting spear, similar to auxilia of the previous century. By the 4th century, the pilum had effectively disappeared from common use.
In the late period of the Roman Empire, the spear became more often used because of its anti-cavalry capacities as the barbarian invasions were often conducted by people with a developed culture of cavalry in warfare.
Medieval period
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the spear and shield continued to be used by nearly all Western European cultures. Since a medieval spear required only a small amount of steel along the sharpened edges (most of the spear-tip was wrought iron), it was an economical weapon. Quick to manufacture, and needing less smithing skill than a sword, it remained the main weapon of the common soldier. The Vikings, for instance, although often portrayed with an axe, sword, or lance in hand, were armed mostly with spears, as were their Anglo-Saxon, Irish, or continental contemporaries. Spears eventually evolved into lances; this is where the lance depiction comes from. With a good majority of Medieval weapons being spears they became integrated into many war tactics. Spears were very commonly used while providing a defensive block. When men on horses tried to get by these blocks, they would often be killed by the spears that could poke through the shield walls. Spears became more common than swords and axes because of how cheap, long, and fast spears were made.
Infantry
Broadly speaking, spears were either designed to be used in melee, or to be thrown. Within this simple classification, there was a remarkable range of types. For example, M. J. Swanton identified thirty different spearhead categories and sub-categories in early Saxon England. Most medieval spearheads were generally leaf-shaped. Notable types of early medieval spears include the angon, a throwing spear with a long head similar to the Roman pilum, used by the Franks and Anglo-Saxons, and the winged (or lugged) spear, which had two prominent wings at the base of the spearhead, either to prevent the spear penetrating too far into an enemy or to aid in spear fencing. Originally a Frankish weapon, the winged spear also was popular with the Vikings. It would become the ancestor of later medieval polearms, such as the partisan and spetum.
The thrusting spear also has the advantage of reach, being considerably longer than other weapon types. Exact spear lengths are hard to deduce as few spear shafts survive archaeologically, but would seem to have been the average length. Some nations were noted for their long spears, including the Scots and the Flemish. Spears usually were used in tightly ordered formations, such as the shield wall or the schiltron. To resist cavalry, spear shafts could be planted against the ground.e.g. at the Battle of Steppes, 1213. William Wallace drew up his schiltrons in a circle at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298 to deter charging cavalry; this was a widespread tactic sometimes known as the "crown" formation. Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray used a circular schiltron on the first day of the Battle of Bannockburn. However, the rectangular schiltron was much more common and was used by King Robert the Bruce on the second day of the Battle of Bannockburn and in the Battle of Old Byland when he defeated English armies.
Throwing spears became rarer as the Middle Ages drew on, but survived in the hands of specialists such as the Catalan Almogavars. They were commonly used in Ireland until the end of the 16th century.
Spears began to lose fashion among the infantry during the 14th century, being replaced by polearms that combined the thrusting properties of the spear with the cutting properties of the axe, such as the halberd. This was concurrent with the rise of plate armour, against which spears were broadly ineffective, and which reduced the need for a soldier to carry a shield, thus allowing them to use both hands to fight with a heavier weapon. Where spears were retained they grew in length, eventually evolving into pikes, which would be a dominant infantry weapon in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Cavalry Cavalry spears were originally the same as infantry spears and were often used with two hands or held with one hand overhead. In the 12th century, after the adoption of stirrups and a high-cantled saddle, the spear became a decidedly more powerful weapon. A mounted knight would secure the lance by holding it with one hand and tucking it under the armpit (the couched lance technique) In combination with a lance rest, this allowed all the momentum of the horse and knight to be focused on the weapon's tip, whilst still retaining accuracy and control. This use of the spear spurred the development of the lance as a distinct weapon that was perfected in the medieval sport of jousting.* Sébastien Nadot, Rompez les lances ! Chevaliers et tournois au Moyen Age, Paris, ed. Autrement, 2010. (Couch your lances ! Knights and tournaments in the Middle Ages...)